


if you're not made for me, why did we fall in love?

by jostxnneil



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Little Mermaid AU, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, Mer!Hunk, Mer!Lance, Multi, Pining, Pining Lance (Voltron), Polyamory, Prince Keith (Voltron), Witch!Allura, in honor of mermay, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 11:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14618022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jostxnneil/pseuds/jostxnneil
Summary: Lance has been fascinated by the humans his whole life, but he never longed for a life on land until he rescued a drowning sailor and found himself unable to forget about him. He gives up his voice for a chance to chase his heart, but soon learns that love, like the ocean, can be as full of danger as it is of wonder.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> started writing this in honor of mermay, even though i should be working on my other wip, lol.

Light flickered across the sandy ocean floor, fronds of plant life and seaweed wavering back and forth with the movement of the waves. Multicolored fish dart in and out of the nearby coral reef, swimming lazily in the sunlit safety of the water. Particles of dust and sand sparkle in the sun, and Lance can almost imagine that he’s looking at the stars.

He can hear the ocean singing to him. Right now, today, the song is peaceful, and he lets his eyes close without fear as he rests on the sand, fins flicking to keep himself in place.

This is only one of the many worlds that the ocean offers. A personal favorite of Lance’s, most of the time—especially when he’s seeking refuge from his endlessly energetic cousins.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you for hours; I thought you’d gone to the shipwreck without me—” Hunk’s voice suddenly breaks the silence, and Lance shoots upward to clap his hand over Hunk’s mouth, eyes darting around them, searching for watchers among the seaweed.

Eventually, he sighs, pulling his hand away and resting it on his hip instead. “Hunk! How many times do I have to tell you— _not so loud._ Do you want the whole _ocean_ to know what we’re doing?”

Hunk’s nose wrinkles. “I think it’d be much safer if someone else knew, actually.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Don’t be such a guppy. We’ve done this a dozen times before and never had a problem yet.”

“Uh, that’s not true. Remember the tiger shark? And when I got stuck in the doorway that one time? And the other time when you got too excited and ran into a wall and the whole thing started collapsing in on itself? And then there was that time—”

“We’ve had a few close calls,” Lance acknowledges, then grins, baring his teeth at his best friend. “Can’t call it much of an adventure if there isn’t a bit of risk, can you?”

“You absolutely can,” Hunk argues, and follows Lance as he starts to swim past the reef towards the latest shipwreck he found. “Visiting neighboring kingdoms or swimming with pods of whales or exploring abandoned beaches—those are all plenty adventurous _without_ the risk of getting killed. You know what else loves shipwrecks, Lance? _Sharks.”_

“If you don’t want to come…” Lance trails off, shrugging, and Hunk whirls to point a finger at him.

“No, I’m not letting you go alone. Who _knows_ what would happen then!” he starts waving his hands around, the way he always does when he lets his anxiety get the best of him, and bites at the scales on the back of his knuckles.

Lance stops, reaching out to rest a hand on Hunk’s shoulder. “Hunk, come on. It’ll be fine! It always has been before. And it’s not like it’s against the rules.”

“No, just extremely frowned upon. Like, enough that it’s _basically_ against the rules,” Hunk says, and wraps a hands around the strap of his pouch tight enough that it looks like it hurts. “Your mom doesn’t like it.”

“Yeah, but she allows it, which she wouldn’t do if she thought there was any _real_ danger,” Lance points out. Hunk shrugs uncomfortably. “Listen, if we see any sharks when we get there, we’ll leave. Promise. We can go play with Nina and the others instead.”

“They always tug on my tail,” Hunk grumbles. “Fine. But seriously, Lance—if there’s even so much as a _hint_ of a shark, we’re turning around.”

Lance launches himself at his friend to hug him, and then breaks away just as quickly, swimming ahead and waving an arm impatiently. “Come on, then! If we don’t hurry, all the interesting stuff will be gone!”

“You don’t even know how long it’s been there already; it’s at least been a few years,” Hunk says. “A few more minutes won’t make any difference.”

But he follows anyway.

Lance listens carefully to the ocean as they near the shipwreck, but her song doesn’t change drastically to warn him of any danger. Of course, she can be fickle sometimes—playful, Lance would call it. She doesn’t always realize that death is a real danger to her inhabitants.

“See? No sharks. It’s practically been absorbed by the plants,” Lance says.

It’s true—this shipwreck is one of the least forbidding that they’ve seen, at least recently. Most shipwrecks have a tendency to look ominous and threatening, although maybe that’s just because of how foreign they are, as human things.

“It’s not so bad,” Hunk grudgingly admits. “Where do we go in?”

“That depends on where you want to start,” Lance replies. “The cabin, or under the deck?”

Hunk tilts his head, considering. “I think there’s more to it then that. It’s a pretty big ship. Kind of like that one we found last summer, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Big enough that it’ll probably take all day to explore properly! And maybe even some of tomorrow.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Hunk complains.

“Do you _want_ to play with Nina? She’s just entered her biting phase,” Lance says, and Hunk winces, looking protectively down at his tail.

“Nevermind,” he says sulkily. “Let’s start with the cabin. It always has the most interesting stuff.”

Lance leads the way—the door takes a few sharp tugs before it finally falls open, revealing the dim interior, just barely lit through the algae-coated windows. It gives the whole place an eerie green glow, and Lance’s eyes turn bright at the sight of it, excited for something new.

The furniture, as it seems to be in most ships, is nailed down, and surprisingly intact for how old the wreck seems to be—probably at least a decade, if Lance had to guess.

Assorted knickknacks are scattered across the floor—broken plates, rusty silverware, salt-crusted books. Lance’s eye catches on one of the books, entranced by the pattern of the salt crystals and the way they’ve frozen it as though someone was in the middle of turning the page.

He hands it to Hunk for safekeeping—Hunk has the bigger bag.

There’s something under a desk—round, with a chain, like a necklace of some sort. It’s almost like the lockets Lance has found before, but bigger, and when he uses a nail to pry it open, he finds a glass face, cracked right down the middle, and a needle stuck fast.

He’s tempted to keep it for himself, but…it looks like exactly the sort of thing Hunk would enjoy tinkering with.

“Hey, Hunk, look at this,” he calls, and soon finds his friend hovering over his shoulder and reaching out with a gentle hand to touch the broken glass.

“Pidge has told me about these,” he murmurs, taking it from Lance’s hand and cupping it in his own. “It’s a compass—I think. It helps humans know what direction they’re going.”

Lance blinks. “They don’t know their directions?”

Hunk is distracted by the compass, but he shrugs a shoulder. “I guess some do, maybe, but for the most part they have to rely on the sun or things like this compass.”

“Weird,” Lance mutters, and leaves Hunk with the compass.

He finds a glass bottle on top of the desk—small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and stoppered tight with a cork. The glass itself is a cloudy black color, but he thinks maybe he sees some sort of dark liquid moving around within the bottle when he spins it.

He adds it to his bag. He can ask Pidge when they see her next week.

There’s a candelabra on the floor—he already has three, or he’d take that with him, too. Something was hanging on the wall; now all that remains of it is tatters of cloth, as though from a flag of some kind. Pieces of pottery and glass are stuck fast to the wooden floor, maybe from a shattered vase. And underneath the desk, threads still cling to each other, wavering in the current; all that’s left of what must have once been a high quality rug.

Pidge has taught him a lot about humans. That’s their agreement—knowledge for knowledge. Sometimes he worries that she’ll get bored of him and Hunk; but that never seems to be the case. Her questions haven’t even come close to running out, and they’ve known her for nearly three years now.

He’d like to call her a friend, but he thinks she might object.

The rest of the ship is much the same—the remains of something that must have once been incredible to behold, with signs of opulence in every piece they find.

“There are so many stories here,” Lance whispers to himself, cradling a metal figurine, likely of one of the human goddesses.

“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Hunk asks. “There must have been nearly a hundred people on this ship…what happened to them? What wrecked the ship? Was it a storm? Was it another ship? Did they run into some rocks?”

Lance shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable as he looks around him at the leftovers of memories and lives that are scattered around him. “There’s no way for us to know, is there? Unless one of the elders remembers when the ship went down.”

These sorts of ships always seem to have an abundance of gold and jewels, which he’s found that a good many humans tend to covet above all other things, usually to their detriment. He’s not interested in most of them, although a few particularly unique gems catch his eye.

There’s a necklace—a charm, he supposes, maybe for luck—with a mermaid carved into it. It’s nothing especially detailed, but something about the simple lines reminds him almost achingly of ocean song, and he doesn’t hesitate to loop the cord of it around his own neck.

“Ow,” Hunk mutters, and Lance looks up, swimming over with a flick of his tail just in time to see Hunk stick a finger in his mouth, looking annoyed. “I’m fine, Lance. Didn’t realize it’d still be that sharp.”

“What?” Lance asks, and Hunk moves to the side to reveal the true prize of the night—a human dagger, unmarred by rust. His eyes glint as he takes it in.

There’s some sort of symbol carved into the hilt that almost seems to glow, despite the lack of light, and Lance is instantly charmed by it—strange as it is. Of all human weapons he’s found, most don’t stand up well to the ocean. They’ll rust, or become dull enough that they might as well just be strangely shaped rocks, and yet here this one is, in a decades-old shipwreck, sharp enough to cut, only barely muddied by ocean grime.

“It’s not like most human things, is it?” Hunk asks. “They aren’t usually sharp after so long in the ocean. And it’s a different color than usual.”

“It’s beautiful,” Lance says, and pulls a length of salvaged waterproof canvas from his bag to wrap it in.

“Maybe we should leave it alone,” Hunk suggests, eyeing it warily. “It’s weird.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Hunk?” Lance asks, stowing the blade carefully in his sack with the rest of his prizes. “Besides, it’s not as though the owner is going to come back for it.”

When they leave the ship, Lance is surprised to find the light dimming, and wonders if he’d somehow lost track of time again.

“I didn’t think it was supposed to storm today,” Hunk says, squinting towards the surface. “I guess even the elders are wrong sometimes.”

“C’mon, we should get these to the cave before the storm _really_ starts. The water is shallow enough here that we could get caught up in it,” Lance tells him, and rushes off towards the cavern where he stows all of his favorite prizes.

Some of them, he takes home, as gifts, or just because he wants them near, but mostly he takes them to the cave, because otherwise he always runs the risk of getting his things stolen by his siblings or his cousins. They’re intrigued enough by human things to take them from him, but apparently not enough to go out and get their own stuff.

Lance hovers at the entrance to his cave—a cleft in the rock hidden by seaweed—to glance up towards the darkening surface one last time.

It’s just beginning—but it looks as though this storm is shaping up to be a rough one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm hopefully starting an internship this week so my time to write is about to decrease considerably. bear that in mind, please, and be patient...i'm still gonna do my best to update this AT LEAST once every week.

Lance decides to stay in his cave long after Hunk heads back to the pod, determined to study and organize his new treasures, happy for the chance to spend the time with only the ocean’s company.

Part of why he loves human things so much—he swears he can _hear_ the stories trapped in the treasures he collects. The music box in the corner has a clasp so worn it’s half a miracle that it hasn’t broken; it must’ve been loved dearly by someone. One of his favorite prizes is a named sword, although he has no idea what it’s name might be, since he can’t read the human script. The runes are carved into the blade just below where it meets the jeweled hilt, and he likes to imagine that perhaps it’s a storied blade, one that belonged to a hero from ages past, whose deeds are still spoken of in the halls of kings.

And this new dagger…for it to last as long as it has, it must’ve been crafted lovingly, carefully, and meticulously cared for long after it was gifted to the owner. It might’ve saved lives, or taken them, or both at the same time.

Lance places it gently on a shelf of rock, next to the named sword, in a place of honor next to the other daggers he’s collected over the years, most of which are pitted with rust.

Nearly the second his hand leaves it, something changes, and he spins around, looking wildly for a hint of any danger—but there’s nothing. He’s still alone.

Then he looks up—and the shadow of the underbelly of a ship is passing directly overhead, blocking the light from entering the gap at the top of his cavern.

He blinks, then grins, checking one last time to make sure Hunk isn’t lying in wait for him somewhere.

Swimming up to meet the ship is one of the easiest things he’s ever done—the currents pull at him more than usual, but the storm still hovers on the horizon, a few miles away, not a direct threat quite yet.

There are no nets or ropes trailing alongside the ship, and it seems too big to be a fishing boat, but Lance still proceeds with caution. He’s heard enough stories of the way humans treat merfolk—at best, holding them captive with some misguided hope that they’ll be granted a wish; at worst, killing them and selling their scales in the markets.

He doesn’t want to become another cautionary tale. But this isn’t his first time exploring a human ship up close.

Pulling himself up using the ladder cut into the side of the ship is easy enough—he can hear laughter and music as soon as his head breaks the surface, and he finds himself smiling, marveling at how different the sounds can be from the music and laughter of merfolk.

He perches on the deck, under the railing, hidden behind a pile of crates draped with canvas, and peeks over the top of them to watch the humans.

They’re—dancing, he guesses. Pidge has told him about it, but he’s never actually seen it. They move across the deck, stomping their feet and spinning around energetically.

The merfolk dance, too, although it’s nothing like that. And it’s saved for special occasions—celebrations, or mating, or new births. If Pidge hadn’t explained human dancing to him, he never would’ve understood what they’re doing now.

He’ll admit that it does look kind of fun.

“Are you planning on joining, Your Highness?” a voice asks, close enough that Lance shies away from it, even as he nearly giggles from the sound of it—human voices really are strange. He’ll never get used to them.

He spots the source of the voice barely a heartbeat later, speaking to someone leaning against the railing of the ship not far from where he perches, staring into the crowd and frowning as though he’s angered by something.

“No, thank you, Shiro,” the man answers, voice quiet. Lance finds himself leaning closer—this man’s voice is one of the more appealing human voices that he’s heard. And he doesn’t seem inclined to scream at the people around him like so many others do, which is a plus.

“Are you sure, Your Highness? I’m sure the men would enjoy seeing their prince in such good spirits,” Shiro says encouragingly.

“That’s alright, Shiro,” the man—a prince?—says. “And would you stop with the ‘your highness’? I’ve told you a hundred times; there’s no need for formality when we’re at sea.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure your advisors would disagree.”

“Well, they’re not here, are they?” the man says, with the first hint of a smile that Lance has seen from him so far. “Just call me Keith.”

 _Keith,_ Lance considers. He’s heard worse. ‘Pidge’ is a far stranger name.

“As you wish, Keith,” Shiro replies. “Why do you refuse to join the dancing? You’d normally jump at the chance to blow off some steam, although I know your preference is sparring.”

Keith jerks his chin in the direction of the gathering storm clouds on the horizon. “Someone has to keep an eye on that storm. And for some reason, I doubt it’ll be Wesley, considering how much rum he’s had.”

Lance follows Shiro’s gaze towards a human in the midst of the dancing, red-cheeked and roaring with laughter as he stumbles across the deck.

“I see your point,” Shiro says dryly. “I suppose I should try to prevent the rest of them from falling so far into their cups.”

Keith offers a crooked grin to the man. “I suppose you should, _Captain._ ”

Shiro rolls his eyes and reaches up to ruffle Keith’s hair in a fond gesture. It’s when he turns to leave that Lance realizes he’s missing an arm.

The sight isn’t unfamiliar to him. There are several in his pod alone that have lost an arm or a hand or a chunk of their tail to a starving shark or a human trap. it seems strange to him that a human would survive such an injury as well as this one has; from what Pidge has told him, human healing leaves a lot to be desired.

Lance finds himself looking after the man—Shiro. He stands tall, confident in his movements, and his body is muscular enough to show that he’s recovered quite well from what might have been a deadly injury to any other.

To another, Shiro would’ve been the one who held their attention. And he intrigues Lance…but he still finds his eyes inevitably drawn back to the prince.

Keith exhales with a heavy sigh as soon as Shiro is out of earshot, turning around to lean his elbows on the railing and staring out to sea, towards the opposite horizon of the storm, where the soft edge of twilight is turning the water an inky indigo.

As if it’d been waiting for that moment, a dog that’d been playing with the drunken sailors chooses that moment to trot over to Keith’s side, tongue lolling, and sit at his feet, nosing at his pants.

Keith smiles—genuinely, for the first time, and _oh,_ Lance would give a good number of his treasures to see that again.

“Hey, Red. Did the men finally tire you out?” Keith murmurs, and Lance takes a moment to be puzzled by the dog’s name. The only thing notably red about it is the red collar around its neck—beyond that, every inch of it is sleek black fur. “Good boy.”

He lets one of his arms fall from the railing in order to pat Red’s head, half of a smile still in place on his face as he does so. Lance can’t help but find it cute—that this seemingly stoic, scowling prince melts in the presence of a dog.

“This is the last trip, you know,” Keith says, conversational, and Lance jerks in alarm for a moment before he realizes that Keith is talking to Red. “After this, I’ll be too busy with court duties to sail out farther than a few miles beyond the harbor, or for diplomatic purposes. No more adventures. No more exploring…suppose I’ll have to let Shiro take you out sometimes, or you’ll get too mopey being landbound, won’t you?”

And that—well, Lance has studied enough sailors to know that not being able to sail is about as bad as losing a limb. And he’s no human, but when he imagines being stuck on the land, never able to explore the ocean as he does now…his entire heart aches with the pain of it.

He doesn’t usually bother enough to feel sorry for the humans—but, in this case…he can understand the melancholy expression on Keith’s face.

The wind changes. Suddenly Red is sitting up at attention, sniffing the air, and Lance cringes when the dog turns to look directly at his hiding place, afraid that he’ll start barking or growling and alert every sailor on board to the fact that there’s a merman clinging to the side of their ship.

But he doesn’t—instead, he sinks down onto his belly, front paws pointed towards Lance, and tilts his head, as though waiting for Lance to say hello.

He’s tempted, for a moment. Just to see what Keith’s reaction would be.

And then Red’s focus changes again—this time towards the other side of the ship, and he stands up, growling, fur standing on end.

“Red, what is it—” Keith asks, starting to turn, and then lightning flashes, and with hardly a moment of warning, the storm rolls over the ship, blotting out the light of the night sky with angry black clouds.

Lance takes the opportunity to dive back into the water, surprised by how choppy it’s gotten in such a short amount of time—he shouldn’t be, he knows that storms on the ocean come on suddenly more often than not.

Normally he would notice. But this time…he got distracted.

He starts to dive deeper, towards where the currents are more settled and won’t be doing their best to tug him in every direction at once, but he hesitates.

Though dull, he can hear the shouts of alarm from the humans on the ship, and he looks back up towards the surface, wondering if they’re experienced enough to handle the storm.

It’s because of that moment that he catches it—lightning flashes, striking the ship, and suddenly there are flames bursting into life, consuming the crates that had been his hiding place and eating steadily across the rest of the ship.

With no small amount of alarm, he pushes himself back up to the surface, letting his head and shoulders crest the waves just enough to allow him an unobscured view of the activity on the ship.

He can see Shiro unfastening the lifeboats—that’s a good sign; he realizes that once a fire has caught with that much tenacity, and during a storm no less, it’s better to abandon ship. The lifeboats are smaller, and it’ll be easier for them to be swamped by the massive waves, but they aren’t that far off from the coast—

Lance spots the rocks before the sailors do. He amounts shouts in warning, but he knows that it’d be lost in the roar of the water and thunder.

Keith is at the helm—he’s struggling with the wheel, fighting the current, and he doesn’t have enough time or enough visibility to avoid the dark crags of rock in front of him.

The sound of the ship smashing into the rocks will follow Lance into his nightmares for weeks.

He distances himself—a sinking ship pulls everything around it down with it, and Lance isn’t prepared to dodge wreckage. Besides, the lifeboats are being lowered, the men climbing aboard…

Keith is one of the last on deck, selflessly pushing men ahead of him, urging them to safety. Shiro is next to him, at first, until Keith shoves at him, pointing towards the lifeboats—if Lance could hear over the sound of the storm, he’s sure he’d hear Keith saying something about the sailors needing their captain to get them to dry land. It’s what makes the most sense. Keith might be an accomplished sailor, from what Lance has seen, but Shiro is still the one with the most authority while they’re on the ocean.

The prince is about to follow the others—kneeling on the edge of the deck, one hand poised on the railing to swing himself under it and over the side to the same ladder that Lance had used to spy on him minutes earlier—when his head jerks back up, apparently having heard something.

And then Lance hears it too—Red, barking in distress.

The dog has gotten himself trapped by the flames, and Lance knows in an instant that Keith isn’t going to leave him.

He waves off the lifeboats— _stupid—_ and runs back towards Red, barely dodging the mast as it falls, entirely ablaze, onto the deck.

Lance watches, heart in his throat, as the prince convinces the dog to jump into his arms, and then carries him back to the other side of the ship, only for his foot to break through a section of the weakened deck—he throws Red over the side, into the water, trusting that the dog will swim and that the others will pull him onto the lifeboat.

He yanks his foot free—and then the flames reach some more dangerous cargo, and the ship explodes.

“Fuck,” Lance curses—a word he learned from Pidge—and dives beneath the water, eyes searching the wreckage for signs of life.

Merfolk don’t make it a habit to save sailors, not when they have a tendency to do harm rather than good when the tides are turned. But it does happen.

And apparently it’s happening now, because Lance can see Keith, steadily sinking among the pieces of the broken ship, blood trailing from a wound on his temple, and he can’t just _leave_ him.

So he hooks an arm around his middle and pulls, grateful for the strength of his tail as he steers them first away from the pull of the sinking ship and then up to the surface, using his shoulder to brace the prince’s head above water.

The lifeboats are already far enough away that Lance can barely make out the muddled shape of their silhouettes above the top of them as they also move to distance themselves from the wreckage, and Lance knows that he can’t just leave Keith hanging onto some flotsam in the hopes that he’ll be found by the sailors.

So he braces himself, looking towards the direction he knows the nearest land to be in, and starts swimming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos are the lifeblood of fic writing. please leave them!!! i hope you're all enjoying this fic so far :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise!! it's another update. i beg y'all not to get used to this; i'm trash and trash gets busy sometimes.   
> anyway, enjoy!

_Humans really aren’t so different from us,_ Lance thinks to himself, studying Keith’s face.

He’d dragged the prince onto a beach just as the sun broke the horizon, bathing the world in light once again, after the longest night of his life.

That should’ve been enough, shouldn’t it? But Lance couldn’t bring himself to leave, not when the prince had barely shown a sign of life beyond the slow rise and fall of his chest.

And it’d given him a chance to study the differences between humans and merfolk up close, like he’s rarely able to—Pidge doesn’t really count, because she doesn’t seem exactly normal for a human, and she’s awfully small. Plus, for some reason, she seems to find it annoying when Lance decides to come close enough to see any proper detail.

There _are_ differences between humans and merfolk, obviously. Lance can see that much—the tail is obvious, but there are other things as well.

Keith doesn’t have any scales above the waist, either, for one. Lance has a lot—scattered across his shoulders and collar bone, coating the back of his hands and wrapping around his wrists like gauntlets, flecked across his brow and cheeks, following the ridge of his spine.

And there are the ears, of course—Lance’s taper to a delicate point, and the edges are much thinner than Keith’s, more like a membrane than actual skin, similar to the webs he has between his fingers.

Keith’s nails are blunt and clear; Lance has no idea how he’d ever be able to pry open clams and oysters with them, like he can with his, which are much thicker. Pidge describes them as claws, and she’s probably not exactly wrong. They can be very useful for self defense in desperate situations.

This close, Lance can see dozens of scars carved into the prince’s pale skin—it seems that the shipwreck isn’t the first spot of trouble he’s found himself in.

“You attract danger, you know that?” Lance murmurs. Keith doesn’t answer.

Lance finds himself reaching out—he shouldn’t, but when else is he going to get the chance?

Keith’s skin is soft against the sensitive pads of Lance’s fingertips, despite having been in the water for so long. His hair is silky smooth—and that’s almost like the merfolk, although Lance will always say that their hair is _much_ softer.

“What is it about you?” Lance asks, voice barely louder than a whisper. “Of all the humans, I’ve never—”

He sighs. The first person to ever catch his attention, and they’re _human._ Of course.

Keith’s brow furrows in his rest—as though he’s in pain, and even when Lance tries to use a finger to smooth out the wrinkles, they don’t go away.

He starts humming before he realizes he’s doing it, and that escalates to singing as soon as he sees the affect it has—Keith’s expression relaxes, turning peaceful rather than pained.

The song he sings doesn’t have words, not to humans. It’s a lullaby to the merfolk. Something every babe knows by the time they reach their third summer.

Lance’s voice sounds different above water. He’s always known that; Pidge has him sing for her experiments all the time. But he never quite gets used to the change.

At least he doesn’t sound as strange as the humans.

There’s barking in the distance—familiar, and accompanied by the sound of boots running on sand. Lance can hear a voice calling the prince’s name.

He yanks his hand away from Keith’s face as though he’s been burned, pushing himself off the beach and back into the water with one smooth movement, concealing himself behind a rock just in time to see Keith sit up and look after him, frowning in confusion as he holds his head.

 _Please don’t tell me he saw me,_ Lance pleads, ducking even further into the water, and continues watching as Shiro and Red reach Keith’s form on the beach.

“Keith!” Shiro calls, barely winded from his run. “Are you okay? We thought we’d lost you for good—but Red here didn’t seem inclined to give up the search.”

Keith blinks, glancing up at Shiro as the man helps him to his feet before looking back towards the ocean—towards the rock that Lance hides behind.

“I’m alright…did you see anyone?” he asks, and Shiro follows his gaze to the water, looking puzzled.

“…no? Just you. Why, did you see anyone? Did someone rescue you?”

“I think so,” Keith replies faintly, still holding his head where it’d been bleeding. “A man…or maybe I just hit my head harder than I thought.”

 _Go with that,_ Lance urges. _That’s the safe option._

“Well…much as I hate to admit it, it does seem more likely that someone rescued you,” Shiro says. “How else would you have managed to make it to the beach with a head wound? Do you even remember?”

Keith shakes his head, then grimaces, obviously regretting it. “No, nothing. Not after the powder caught.”

“Shame,” Shiro murmurs. “I would’ve liked to thank them. Your rescuer—they deserve that and more.”

Keith seems fixated on the water—on the waves crashing against the shore, and the sun glittering off of the surface, and the rock that hides Lance from view. Shiro follows his eyes one last time before clapping him on the shoulder, turning him towards the cliff face.

“Come on, then—let’s get that head of yours looked at, and then see about getting you dried off,” Shiro says, leading him away.

Lance watches as long as he can—and then he hears the ocean calling.

His mother is worried.

But even then, he finds himself lingering…just for a moment longer. Just long enough to see the prince look back one last time before he disappears from view completely.

 _Keith,_ Lance thinks. _A prince._

As soon as he ducks below the water to head home, exhaustion pulls on his body as though it were made of stone, and he finds his way back on sheer instinct and muscle memory alone.

“Lance!” a voice calls, filled with relief, and then he’s being crushed in a very familiar hug. “I thought you _died._ You never came home last night! And with the storm, and that new shipwreck, and the humans hanging around, I though for _sure_ you’d been caught or hurt or—or—ugh, you _scared_ me, you dumb _mola_!”

“I’m sorry, Hunk—I promise I’m fine—” Lance starts to explain, and then he feels a very familiar presence behind him, and freezes.

“Leandro Alejandro Naolin Ciro Emilio Hernandez-McClain, _where have you been?!”_

Lance winces, and droops slowly out of Hunk’s loosened hug to turn, rubbing at the back of his head. “Hi, Mama…”

And there she is, arms crossed, scales flushed brilliantly bright with anger and worry. Her nails—and suddenly Pidge’s comments about them being more like claws seem much closer to the truth than they ever have before—tap impatiently against her upper arm as she waits for an explanation.

“Well, see…I _was_ just organizing my treasures, but then a ship passed by overhead, and I wanted to at least see who was on it, so I went to explore…”

His Mama’s face crinkles in disapproval—she’s never outright _forbidden_ interaction with the humans, but she hates it when he gets close to them, terrified that one day he’ll get just a little _too_ close and end up captured or worse.

“I was careful, Mama, _lo prometo_ , don’t worry. But, then the storm came in, and the humans hadn’t been paying attention, and they were caught by surprise…the lightning caught the ship, and there was fire _everywhere_ , and I couldn’t just leave like that! I was far enough away that they couldn’t see me, and that I wouldn’t get pulled down with the ship, but I wanted to make sure they got to safety okay. And then one of them, he went back for his dog…and he ended up falling from the ship, and none of the other humans were _anywhere_ close—he would’ve drowned!”

“ _Dios mio, niño,_ you saved a human?” his mama gasps, pressing a hand to her chest. “Did he see you? Was he awake?”

Lance shakes his head immediately. “No, no, he didn’t—he hit his head when he fell, he was unconscious the whole time. That was part of why I had to save him…but I didn’t want to try to take him to the other humans, because I didn’t know how they’d react to seeing me, so I took him back to the land myself. And it took _forever,_ because I had to keep his head above the surface the whole time so he could breathe—I’m sorry, Mama. I should’ve sent a message. _Lo siento.”_

“Yes, you should’ve,” she grumbles, but he can tell that she’s softening. Her arms unfold, and she runs a hand through her hair, wincing when it catches on her scales. “I was worried, _mijo.”_

“You knew I wasn’t dead, though,” Lance points out. “At least there’s that.”

She throws her hands up in the air, exasperated. “ _Ay, cariño,_ when will you learn that knowing whether someone is alive or dead isn’t everything? You could’ve been injured, you could’ve been trapped, you could’ve been _dying_ but not dead yet—it is not such a simple thing, you see?”

Her eyes look over him from head to tail, checking for injury, and she must notice his exhaustion, and the way his fins droop, because her lips purse before she finally lets her shoulders drop and swims forward to pull him into a hug.

“ _Don’t_ do that to me again, Lancito. I mean it.”

“Mm,” Lance hums, grip on awareness fading even more in the safety of his mother’s arms. “Okay, Mama.”

She clucks her tongue, pulling back to hold him by the shoulders, and he blinks rapidly, trying to stay awake—but she won’t have it.

She lets go of him with one hand to point down the hall—towards his room.

“Go. Sleep. You look exhausted, _niño._ Hunk, will you stay with him? Just to make sure he’s really all right.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Hunk replies, and Lance’s Mama smacks Hunk on the shoulder as she passes by.

“ _Maria,_ Hunk, honestly,” she scolds, and Hunk gulps, nodding until she’s disappeared towards the throne room. He deflates once she’s out of sight, turning to Lance.

“Your mom is terrifying, Lance,” he says, and—he’s not wrong.

“I know,” Lance replies, tired, and starts to make his way down the long hall towards his room. “It’s always worst when she worries.”

“So stop making her worry, then,” Hunk suggests, as though it’s that easy.

Lance smiles at the idea. “You know moms, Hunk. You have two of them—do you think _they’ll_ ever stop worrying, even knowing your safe?”

“Oh,” Hunk realizes. “Yeah, no.”

“Exactly.”

His room is a mess, as always, but he’s too exhausted to care—not that he usually would otherwise, anyway.

He settles onto the cushion in the corner of the room, resting his head on folded arms and pulling his tail up to wrap it around himself. Hunk settles next to him, tail curling along the length of Lance’s own in comfort—whether it’s more for Lance or for himself, Lance doesn’t know, but he doesn’t mind it, not after the night he had.

Sleep finds him quickly, and despite his best efforts, the last thought on his mind before he drifts off is a memory of the prince, and his searching gaze as he’d looked back that very last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen maybe i'm writing this without comments as motivation so far but they DO help and i love them. even if it's just smthn like "i'm screaming" or "this is good" or "kudosx10" it could literally be a SMILEY FACE and i'd love it. just so you know. okay bye now


	4. Chapter 4

Lance tries very, very hard to go back to business as normal. Really, he does—he swears that he’s trying. But, well, um.

It’s _impossible._

No matter how much effort he puts into it, he can’t seem to forget the prince’s face, and the expression of longing that’d stolen over his eyes as he looked behind him, searching the sea for proof that he wasn’t crazy.

It’s stupid, letting a human get to him like this.

But even when he thinks he’s starting to move on from his encounter, he’ll fall asleep and dream about indigo eyes and a soft-spoken voice talking to the sea.

He sighs explosively, for what has to be the third time in five minutes, and flops over onto his stomach in the sand, sending clouds of it billowing through the water as he rests his head on his arms.

“Uh, Lance? Buddy? You okay over there?” Hunk asks, looking up from the compass that’s become his latest project.

Lance wrinkles his nose and then sighs again, quieter this time. “It’s dumb. I’m dumb.”

“That human, still? The prince?” Hunk says, sitting up straighter and looking mildly alarmed.

“I keep trying to forget about him, but just when I think I have he shows up in my _dreams!_ He won’t leave me alone!”

Hunk blinks, mouth falling open in surprise, eyes only growing wider as Lance continues ranting.

“It’s stupid! He’s stupid! He’s human and he has ridiculous hair—like, come _on,_ who has a mullet anymore?—and he’s _human._ And a prince, on top of that, so he’d probably jump at the chance to kill a mermaid as some sort of sick trophy to make himself seem more competent or honorable to his people—not like _that_ hasn’t happened before, we both know the stories—and he can’t even go out to sea anymore because he has too many responsibilities at court, so why do I care? It’s not like I can ever see him again,” Lance finishes, and then slumps, sulking. “But I still _want_ to. Why do I want to, Hunk? I shouldn’t want to. I shouldn’t care about him and his stupid mullet.”

Hunk hesitates, and then scratches at the scales underneath his jaw, which has Lance straightening up instantly, fixing him with a suspicious look.

“Hunk?” he asks.

Hunk’s tail flushes a brilliant orange.

“You _know_ something,” Lance realizes, voice hushed and accusatory. Hunk blanches, hurriedly waving his hands in denial.

“No, no, I don’t know anything, it’s just allergies, it must be this kelp or the sand or, or—”

“You’re itching your scales,” Lance points out, and Hunk starts looking very much like he’s being backed into a corner. “And your tail is orange. You only do that when you’re hiding something! It’s why Mama trusts you so much; she _knows_ you can’t lie.”

“I just—well, it sounds like—oh, come on, Lance, you don’t really think I’d lie to _you_ , right, buddy? It’s just…allergies…” Hunk trails off, voice growing weaker, and Lance crosses his arms, unimpressed. “Oh, _fine,_ you nosy dolphin.”

“It’s not being nosy if it’s about _me!”_ Lance argues, settling back down onto his stomach, staring expectantly up at Hunk. “What is it? What did you figure out? Why can’t I stop thinking about Keith?”

Hunk winces, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Well, um. I think, maybe—from what you’ve said—just going off of how you feel and what you told me about the night you rescued him and all…well, maybe, um. Maybe you should check your heartstone?”

Lance shoots upwards, sending Hunk into a coughing fit as he breathes in the grit from the sea floor. “Oh, _no._ ”

“Yeah,” Hunk agrees miserably, letting his tail flop against the sand.

“You should’ve just let me suffer in ignorance,” Lance hisses, and Hunk hunches his shoulders, curling inwards.

“I tried?” he offers, and Lance sighs, because yeah. He did. Lance had been the one who insisted on knowing.

Lance flicks his fins, distressed, and watches the scales on his tail go dull.

“Aww, Lance, don’t do that,” Hunk pleads, reaching towards him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

Lance takes a deep breath, trying to wrestle his emotions into submission, and then turns to his best friend. “Will you go with me?”

“Where?” Hunk asks, and then realizes a second later, “Oh, you mean—oh. Yeah, Lance. I’ll go with you.”

Heartstones, though freely worn and spoken of within pods, are a jealously guarded secret of the merfolk. One of the few strict laws they actually enforce is the one which forbids any merfolk to tell a human about the heartstones. The risk is minimal, usually, because humans can’t come into the underwater kingdom of the merfolk, and most merfolk choose to keep their heartstones somewhere safe to prevent something bad from happening. Some, mostly those who are settled with families, wear their heartstones proudly around their necks.

Lance and his sisters aren’t allowed to carry their heartstones with them, because of the family that they belong to. His mother, as queen of this ocean, does occasionally become a target for malicious plots, despite how well-loved she is by her people. And one of the easiest ways to get to her is through her children.

So, of course, she does what she can to prevent that. Which mostly means keeping their heartstones under lock and key.

You see, the thing about heartstones that makes them so precious is that they carry part of a merperson’s soul.

This enables them to do several things—primarily, to find their soulmate.

Well, _soulmate._ It’s not a done deal. No one _has_ to be with their soulmate. And there’s nothing that guarantees everyone will find their soulmate, or that if they do they’ll fall in love with each other. Plus, everyone has more than one person out there that they’re compatible with, so really it’s all very complicated.

There’s more, of course. But right now—well. Lance is experiencing all of the symptoms of a new soul bond, and he needs to know for sure.

When merfolk are hatched, their heartstone is a clear gem guarded by the scales at the hollow of their throat—it doesn’t become visible until they’re well into their fifth summer, and they aren’t told its full meaning and power until their tenth summer, typically.

When they reach fifteen summers, the gem turns a cloudy white and breaks off from their scales, disconnecting from their bodies. This is usually when the heartstone would be given to parents for safekeeping, perhaps worn on a cord around their mother’s neck in order for it to be kept safe. Lance’s heartstone is kept with the rest of his family’s in the treasury, the only entrance of which is behind the throne, accessible only to the royal family and their guests.

When someone finds a person they’re compatible with—a soulmate—their heartstone swirls with new color that represents the type of relationship they could have. Platonic soulmate colors are yellow, green, and orange. Any other color indicates some sort of romantic attachment.

When entirely disconnected from contact with one’s heartstone, as Lance is, there are symptoms of new soul bonds. Dreams, mostly. An inability to focus on anything other than the person. Loss of appetite.

Lance pauses at the door to the treasury, hesitating to place his hand on the stone and be recognized. Hunk hovers at his shoulder, trying to provide comfort and support with his presence.

“I don’t know if I want to know,” Lance admits, and Hunk nods.

“Perfectly understandable. Because if it’s true, what can you do about it? But then, if it’s not, then you’re worrying for nothing. But also if it _is,_ the color could at least tell you what sort of relationship you’re supposed to have with him, and if it’s doomed like it seems,” Hunk reasons.

“You’re not helping,” Lance complains.

“Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“And how could it _not_ be doomed? He’s human, and I’m a merman. I can’t live on land, and he can’t live in the sea. That sounds awfully doomed to me, Hunk,” Lance points out.

Hunk shrugs. “Well, there’s always—”

Lance shoves his hand over Hunk’s mouth. “No. Nope. Not even gonna think about that until I _know._ Okay? Just, no.”

“You have to see it if you want to know, you know,” Hunk says as soon as Lance takes his hand away.

“I don’t like you,” Lance says.

“False. You love me,” Hunk replies, tone cheerful, and nudges Lance forward with his tail. “C’mon, buddy, you can do this. No big deal, right? And you won’t have to figure anything out on your own, you know.”

Lance sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

He opens the door, watching it grind open in front of him with as close to a neutral expression as he can manage. It’s dark inside, of course, until he swims forward and brushes a hand against the wall, causing a wave of light to fill the room from the bioluminescent algae that clings to the stone.

The treasury is big, but he knows where he’s going, and Hunk follows close behind, giving him the wordless support he needs in order to find the courage to keep going.

And then he’s there. And the chests are in front of him, nestled in their cushioned alcoves, and he’s not sure if he can bring himself to open the one with his name engraved into it.

“Can you look?” he asks, turning a pleading look on Hunk. He knows it’s childish—but he hates what it’ll mean for him if he opens that box and finds his heartstone to be anything other than pearly white. And it _sounds_ easier to hear it from someone else than find out for himself. Maybe.

“I really think you should do this for yourself,” Hunk replies, and Lance should’ve guessed that’d be his response.

“I know,” he murmurs.

He stares at it, just for another moment. As though that could bully it into submission. And then he reaches out and lifts the lid with one swift movement, bracing himself for the truth he’ll find inside.

His eyes are squinted shut, but that doesn’t stop him from hearing Hunk’s gasp, and when he finally finds it in himself to crack open his left eye, he deflates, fins drooping and scales turning the darkest, muddiest color he’s ever seen them.

Because his heartstone isn’t white. It’s not even yellow, or green, or orange.

It’s two colors—a bright, brilliant red twined with the most spectacular blue he’s ever seen, with edges of purple wherever the colors wander too close to each other.

And that’s—well, it’s nothing he’s seen before, he knows that for sure, but he knows what the colors mean individually.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

Hunk nods. “Yeah. Fuck.”


	5. Chapter 5

 “Pidge!” Lance screeches as he breaches the surface, startling the girl so much that she nearly topples into the water. “I need human clothes.”

“What the fuck, Lance?” Pidge demands. She points the small knife in her hand that she was using to trim nets at him, other hand on her hip. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Sorry for scaring you, blah blah blah. I’m in a rush. Do you have any extra human clothes with you?” he asks, and she nearly growls at him for the first comment before his question registers.

“No? Just what I’m wearing, which _wouldn’t_ fit you, even if you were human. Why do you need clothes?” she asks.

Hunk finally swims up next to Lance, gasping for breath and leaning his upper body on the side of Pidge’s small boat, tipping it dangerously to one side. “I’m going to put a _rope_ on you, I swear.”

“Hunk, get off of my boat,” Pidge orders. “Has Lance finally gone completely nuts? Why is he asking for human clothes?”

Hunk gasps a few more times, slowly lowering himself back into the water until only his hands hold onto the edge of the boat, holding himself steady in the water with so he doesn’t have to work as hard with his tail to stay in place. Then he takes one enormously deep breath and launches into an explanation.

“Lance saved a human prince last week when his ship wrecked during a storm and since then he’s been having all these dreams and hasn’t been able to eat or focus and even though he _wants_ to he can’t forget him so we went to go check a theory I had and I was right and long story short the prince he saved is Lance’s soulmate but obviously he’s a human and Lance is a merman so there’s a small problem right there but Lance refuses to let it go because he’s _pining_ and it’s his _soulmate_ so he wants to go to the sea witch and ask her to turn him human but he needs help because he doesn’t know how to _act_ human even if he _looks_ human and also he’s not sure how to find the prince once he _does_ turn human so he wanted to ask you for help and also clothes because he’s pretty sure that meeting the prince who is also his soulmate for the first time entirely naked would be a bad impression, from what we know about human etiquette?”

Pidge blinks, and sits down abruptly enough to rock the boat.

“I have questions,” she says.

“That’s fair,” Hunk replies.

“Since when do mermaids have soulmates?” she asks, and of course that’s her first question.

“Merfolk,” Hunk corrects, and then hesitates. “And actually we can’t really tell you the answer to that one.”

“What? Why not?” Pidge says, perplexed—and of course she would be. They’ve never refused to answer a question before.

“Well, it’s kind of, um—forbidden? Like, very forbidden. Like, if you tell you’ll get exiled from the kingdom forbidden?” Hunk replies, rubbing his neck and looking anywhere but directly at Pidge.

“ _Why?”_ Pidge repeats.

“We’ve already told you that interaction with humans is frowned upon,” Lance says, taking over from Hunk, who relaxes and shoots him a relieved look. “Humans usually aren’t like you, Pidge—there are a lot out there who would do _anything_ to capture a mermaid, whether because they think it’ll bring them luck or for sport or just because our corpses can fetch them a high price at the market. And the whole soulmate thing is tied to the one secret that we’re not allowed to tell—because if humans knew, they could use it against us.”

“I would _never—”_ Pidge starts, but Lance shakes his head and raises a hand, cutting her off.

“I know. I know you would never. But it’s the principle of the thing, just a bit—and do you think you could resist writing notes about it? It’s a big secret. It’d probably advance your research farther than anything has before. But _no one_ can know. If the wrong person got a hold of your notes, or overheard you talking about it to your brother…” Lance lets himself trail off, allowing Pidge’s imagination to fill in the blanks.

She pales.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s not that we don’t trust _you,_ Pidge, it’s just—well, we don’t really trust _humans._ For good reason,” Lance adds, and Pidge still looks annoyed by not knowing, but she nods.

“I don’t like it. And if you asked me not to write it in my notes, I wouldn’t. But I understand.”

“Thanks, Pidgey. Now, about those clothes…”

“ _Wait,_ oh my god, I just realized—you found your _soulmate?_ And they’re human? Is that even possible? How does the soulmate thing work; is it just one person forever, like a mate-for-life sort of thing, or is it more complicated?” Pidge asks, rapid fire, and that’s about exactly what Lance had been expecting.

“We’re not animals, Pidge; we don’t have ‘ _mates.’_ And the soulmate thing is pretty complicated; it’s more like a way of knowing right away when you meet someone that you’re compatible in a deep way and could share a happy life together? But we can still have that with people who _aren’t_ our soulmates, too. And there are different types of soulmates. But that’s not really the point right now? I’m kind of on a time crunch here.”

“Right, the human. Did you say a prince?” Pidge remembers, blinking. “And you rescued him?”

“Yeah, last week there was that huge storm—or maybe it was just at sea, I don’t know—and his ship was hit by lightning, and I was nearby so I watched to make sure they all got to the lifeboats okay, and he went back to save his dog and tripped and fell into the water and hit his head and it’s not like I could _leave_ him, so I saved him. And then carried him to land, because he was unconscious and couldn’t swim and I wasn’t about to trust the sailors in the lifeboats not to kill me, and apparently he’s my soulmate, because my luck is just _like that._ Are you gonna help or not?” Lance explains, crossing his arms, tapping his fingers impatiently.

“Oh my god,” Pidge moans, horrified. “You’re talking about Prince Keith, aren’t you? Your soulmate is Prince Keith. Oh my god. Oh my—what the _fuck._ ”

Lance perks up immediately, launching himself towards the boat and sending Pidge flailing for balance as he grabs onto her hand. “You know him? What’s he like? Is he nice? Does he have a girlfriend? Do you think he’ll like me?”

“I’ve never _met_ the guy, Lance. Let go,” Pidge tells him, and shakes him off. “He’s the prince of the kingdom next to mine. I live right on the border, and our kingdoms are on friendly terms, so I hear talk of him all the time. Apparently he’s got all of his advisors outraged for daring to suggest a more democratic government rather than a monarchy as it currently is, which has earned him points with the people but not with the old men that have been making most of the decisions up to now. He only came of age about a year ago, and he’s yet to have a coronation ceremony, because he’s been away on diplomatic missions. But, Lance—he’s a _prince._ ”

Lance shrugs. “So? So am I.”

“No you’re—wait, are you?” Pidge says, squinting at him as though there’s some way to tell just by looking.

“He’s the seventh child of the current queen, so. Yeah, he’s a prince,” Hunk answers. “I thought we’d told you that?”

“No?” Pidge says, sounding strangled. “You definitely did not. Oh my god, one of my best friends is a mer prince.”

Lance pauses, tilting his head. “I’m one of your best friends?”

“No. Yes? Shut up,” Pidge grumbles. “I’m processing.”

“Can you process quickly? I need to visit the sea witch before my Mama finds out what I’m planning on doing,” Lance says.

“Why?”

“Uh, because she’d stop me? Duh.”

“Is it dangerous?”

Hunk interrupts before Lance has the chance to answer. “Oh, _yeah_ it is. I tried to talk him out of it, but he won’t _listen._ No one makes a deal with the sea witch! Because they’re not _stupid.”_

“Okay, so I know we’ve talked a bit about magic,” Pidge starts, “but that’s mostly been very vague and very not real and very not dangerous and this sounds very different.”

“Well, you have your human mages, don’t you?” Hunk asks.

“Yeah, I guess, technically, but everyone stays away from them and they keep to themselves—they’re more dangerous than they’re worth, usually,” Pidge says.

“Exactly,” Hunk replies. “That’s the sea witch, except she’s _worse._ Her bargains are _never_ in anyone’s favor but her _own,_ and I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten what they wanted from her. And when you don’t fulfill your side of the bargain, your soul is bound to her forever.”

“Okay, I’m definitely seeing the danger side of things here,” Pidge acknowledges. “Lance?”

Lance sighs, swirling his fingers absentmindedly over the top of the water. “I know it’s dangerous.” Hunk scoffs, and Lance turns to fix him with a look, more serious than Hunk has seen him in a long time. “I _know._ But I—I think I have to risk it. It’s like when I saved him. I can’t just _leave_ it. I can’t not know. And if the alternative is that I spend the rest of my life until I _maybe_ find another soulmate having dreams about him and hardly able to think about anything else—well, I have to at least _try.”_

“Your scales are brown,” Pidge notes. “Why are they doing that? It looks like mud.”

“It means he’s sad,” Hunk explains. “Sort of. That kind of brown is more the color of—despair, I guess? Like when you’ve lost hope. But, Lance, you don’t need to lose hope—not yet. I still don’t want you to go to the sea witch, because I don’t want to see you get hurt. But if this is really what you want, I’ll do what I can to help.”

Lance manages a half smile. “Thanks, Hunk.”

Pidge sighs above them. “Me too, I guess. But if this comes back to bite me in the ass, I’m never bringing you guys presents ever again.”

Lance grins, and lunges upwards to wrap her in a hug, ignoring her yelp of alarm as the edge of the boat dips towards the water. “Thank you.”

“Whatever,” she grumbles. “Now, tell me—what’s the plan?”


	6. Chapter 6

The cavern is exactly as he expected it.

He’s never been here, despite how close to the palace it is. He might constantly be looking for adventure, but he doesn’t have a death wish.

Well. Until now, apparently.

The sea witch Haggar has been the shadow monster in children’s tales since his grandmother ruled—no one can decide on just how old she is, exactly, but it’s at least a good few thousand years.

Not unheard of, for mer. Not even rare, for one with magic. But Haggar, unlike most who successfully reach her age, has survived multiple wars and even a handful of assassination attempts, against all odds. Some whisper that she must be more powerful than the royal family, for them not to have done more than exile her, but it’s untrue.

She used to be different, is the thing. Not many know the stories—but Lance does, and so he’s maybe not as scared as he should be.

Once, when merfolk lived peacefully alongside humans—even had alliances with them—Haggar was human. She was a researcher in a royal court, and then, eventually, a queen.

She ruled with her husband, both fair and kind and just. They had a son whom they both loved more than anything. All was well.

And then it wasn’t.

No one knows what happened to change them—to twist their hearts until they forgot what came before their lust for power, to the extent that they began to wage war on the countries that had once been their allies. Some speculate that it was a spell gone wrong—research of Haggar’s turned sour—and others say it was a curse from someone who was jealous of the life Haggar had made for herself. Whatever it was, the world wasn’t safe.

The queen of the court that Haggar had once lived in, who had long loved Haggar like her own sister, was the only one with the strength and bravery to stand up to her.

Eventually, Zarkon was killed—by his own son, long exiled and forgotten by his cursed parents—and Haggar was cursed into a monstrous form, banished to the sea where the magic of the mer could contain her power.

She raged for a thousand years—and then Lance’s grandmother, during the twilight years of her reign, gave her a gift.

She granted Haggar the memories she had forgotten—love, and home, and a son long dead, but remembered well by his people.

So it went. So Haggar turned he anger inwards, and became bitter, isolated.

But, to those she found worthy, she could, on occasion, be known to grant a wish.

For a price. As it always is with magic.

Lance knows Haggar isn’t the monster of the stories. He also knows that she changes as the sea—forgiving one moment, and deadly the next.

But mostly…mostly, Lance thinks, she is lonely and bitter and grieving for a life lost.

The cavern looms, gloomy and forbidding, pitted stone jutting up from the sandy ocean floor. Sharks patrol the waters—Haggar’s only companions. The water here is dark and inky, as though frozen in perpetual night, and the only plants which grow are strange and creeping—Lance gives them a wide berth, wary of the way they reach for him, seeking warmth and light.

Few merfolk have managed to get what they wanted from Haggar. Her conditions are cunning and difficult—likely to ensure that only those truly sure of their wishes will dare to ask, but also perhaps because it gives her some form of satisfaction to see others fail to achieve happiness, as she did.

Lance won’t know what he’s willing to give up until she asks. But he thinks it’s almost anything, and he’s glad he thought to sneak out for this.

Hunk would stop him. His sisters would stop him. To give up all he has for a human life? For a man he hasn’t even truly met?

And yet…he looks at his heartstone, tied around his neck, and the warm glow of it steels his resolve.

He will not abandon his soulmate.

_Why do you linger on my doorstep, hatchling?_

The voice that whispers in his mind is hoarse and rough, like its owner has been chewing the needles of sea urchins.

“I’m here to make a deal,” Lance answers, proud when his voice doesn’t waver.

A pause.

 _Best come in, then,_ she murmurs, and he feels her presence recede from his mind.

It reminds him of the way the ocean pulls back from the land just before a tsunami.

But he swims forward anyway.

The first part of the cave is much like a hall, curtained with dark plants that wave in the current and unfurl to reach for his skin—he shivers, and it has nothing to do with cold.

But, despite that—there’s light at the end, _almost_ inviting, and it’s maybe too easy for him to shake off his unease and continue on. Hunk would say it’s a lack of self-preservation.

Lance calls it determination.

The cavern itself is—not what he was expecting.

Purple witch lights line the walls and float just below the ceiling, keeping the worst of the shadows at bay. Cushions, exactly like the ones in the castle that defy underwater logic, are scattered around the room, providing plenty of comfortable places to sit.

The rest of the furniture is a mockery of the human world—a stone table, shelves carved into the craggy rock walls, candelabras glowing with lavender flame that doesn’t burn.

 _Haggar,_ Lance thinks, _misses the life she once had far more than the stories would have you believe._

He doesn’t see her at first, and then she shifts and he just barely catches the movement in the corner of his eye.

She’s lounging in a shadowy alcove, concealing the details of her appearance. All he can properly make out are her eyes, glowing golden yellow.

It confuses him—mer eyesight is meant to handle the depths of the ocean, and yet she manages to hide in shadows.

 _Magic,_ he decides.

“Come closer,” Haggar orders, in that cruel rasp of hers.

He does. Better not to anger her so early.

She scrutinizes him, and he feels as though her eyes can see through his skin. Through the seashell that conceals his heartstone from view.

“You are the prince of this realm, are you not?” she asks. “Seventh son of the queen Maria, first and only son born to her after six daughters?”

“I am,” Lance says.

“Interesting,” she murmurs. “Why have you come to me, princeling? The sea sings of you, the sharks whisper…yet I find that your desires are clouded. Do you know what you want, young prince, or do you pretend? Are you willing to give me what I will take?”

“I wish to join my soulmate,” Lance replies, deciding it best to speak formally. “The circumstances surrounding that wish are less desirable to me, as I do not like to leave my home, but they are not of consequence when compared to the joy that my soulbond will bring.”

“Do you know this?” Haggar asks. “Do you know this soulmate will bring you joy, and not pain? Red for passion, red for a love deeper than the deepest ocean trenches…yet also, for some, the color of heartbreak.”

Lance thinks he probably shouldn’t ask how she knows about the red in his heartstone.

“I will gladly risk everything I have—everything I am—for the smallest chance at such a love, however fleeting it may be.”

Haggar tilts her head at him. “You may come to regret such a bold statement. Most do.” Her voice is quiet, sincere—like she knows the pain of such regret personally.

Before he can respond, she braces her arms against the rock and lifts herself from the alcove, revealing herself to the light and letting the shadows drift down, clinging to her skin like a cloak but no longer concealing her from view.

Her hair is limp and long, white with streaks of gray. Markings stripe her face, emphasizing its angular shape. Her fingers are tipped with black claws three times as long as Lance’s, and from the waist down, rather than a tail, her body mimics the shape of an octopus. Inky black tentacles curl across the floor, dark enough to blend with the clinging shadows except for the undersides, which are a dark purple.

From the stories, he was imagining worse.

“You do not fear me,” Haggar observes.

Lance’s eyes snap to her face—she seems curious, not angry. Perhaps slightly amused.

“The sea does not sing of you as though you are a threat,” he replies. “She mourns you as a lost soul—one who grieves for something long gone, unable to move on.”

Haggar blinks. He thinks maybe he’s surprised her.

“What do you wish for, princeling? What must you sacrifice for this soulmate of yours?”

Lance takes a deep breath. _He wishes he had more time. He wishes his soulmate was mer. He wishes he didn’t have to sacrifice anything at all. He wishes he didn’t have to say goodbye._

“I wish to be human,” he says, and it comes out so quietly he thinks he’ll have to repeat himself.

“You are not the first,” Haggar says. She leans forward, sinking down onto a cushion, and points at one nearby. “Sit.”

He sits, curling his tail along the floor. They’re close enough for her tentacles to brush his scales when she breathes.

“Your soulmate is human, then, princeling?” she says, leaning on one elbow.

“Yes,” he whispers. Louder, he adds, “I saved him from a shipwreck. I didn’t know…but there’s no doubt that it’s him.”

Her eyes meet his, just for a moment, and she curls into herself with a realization before relaxing again. She smiles, all teeth, sharp and serrated and black.

“I see,” she says. “A prince for a prince is it? The sea works in strange ways. To think she would bond you with one that would take you from her…he must be special, for you to be willing to leave.”

“I don’t know much about him,” Lance admits. “I saved him, but I didn’t stay to wait for him to wake up. I only know what I’ve observed and what I’ve heard from others.”

“Yes,” Haggar agrees. Perhaps she’s already seen that in his eyes somehow, along with the knowledge that his soulmate is a prince. “Yet you’re willing to become human for him.”

Lance’s fingers wrap around his concealed heartstone before he realizes. He can feel the warmth of it through the shell that conceals it.

Her eyes fix on his hand, and he lowers it hastily, but he knows it’s too late. She understands what’s hidden there.

“You trust too easily, hatchling,” she sneers. But she doesn’t attack him. She doesn’t rip the necklace from his neck, as she could, and ruin everything.

Instead, she moves, flowing fluidly across the room to gather bottles and jars and magic bubbles with preserved materials from the shelves, combining them together in the stone basin at the center of the room.

The water turns cloudy, billowing dark and gray around them as smoke does from a fire on land.

“This potion will turn you human for three days. Get your soulmate to kiss you before sunset on the third day, and the change will be permanent.”

“And if I don’t?”

Her yellow eyes fix him with an amused look across the basin, their glow cutting easily through the haze.

“Then you will dissolve into sea foam, and spend one thousand years as a spirit of the tides.”

“After that?” Lance ventures to ask.

She waves a hand dismissively. “Perhaps the ocean will be merciful, and grant you a second chance as a merman. Perhaps she will not, and you will die. Either way…a thousand years is not nothing.”

He nods. Then he nods again. “I know.”

Sparks drip from her fingers and into the basin, swirling the mixture without touching it.

“Magic is much like science,” she says. “You cannot create something from nothing.”

She pauses her magic, hand stilling in the water, to look up at him. Something in her face grows softer, just for a moment, and he could swear he sees human eyes cutting through the yellow glow for half a moment.

“You understand I do not wish for you to succeed,” she tells him. “You understand, I will not make this easy.”

He nods. He wonders at the change in her face—if, perhaps, the theories of a curse involving possession of some sort had some merit to them.

“What is your price?” he asks.

She thinks for a moment, looking at him. Watching the color of his scales as it shimmers between shades of blue.

Her eyes settle on his face, his eyes—and then on his throat.

“Your voice,” she decides. “For the chance to love your soulmate—your voice will do.”

He touches his throat, blinking in surprise. Wavering. “My voice?”

She nods, as though she understands his misgivings. Her hand waves. The haze in the water solidifies into an image of a glow in his throat being pulled from him—trapped in a necklace.

“You will no longer be able to sing to the ocean. She will not hear you as one of her own.”

And that—

His hand drifts to his heartstone, fingers tightening around it until the edges cut painfully into his skin.

For the ocean not to hear him, not to _know_ him…

Human lives are short, compared to mer. He thought about this, before, when he was first considering taking this path, and hated that he would get so much less time than he ever thought he would, but decided it would be worth it if he spent that time with the one he was meant to be with above all others.

Now, the short lifespan seems almost like a blessing, because—the ocean will know him in death, if nothing else.

“How?” he asks.

Haggar twirls her fingers, and some of the liquid in the basin pours itself into a bottle, which she corks and then wraps a tentacle around to free her hands.

She goes to a shelf, and pulls a matched pair of necklaces from it. They’re simple—a delicate but durable chain, with an empty link attached in place of a stone or shell.

“The amulets seal it. The potion turns you human—the amulet keeps you that way if you get your kiss. They create a bond—you will be connected to me, and I to you, but it cannot be used for manipulation. Only to ensure that both sides keep up their end of the bargain.”

He takes it from her when she offers, and looks at the empty link hanging from the chain.

“The amulets take shape when the deal is struck,” Haggar continues, answering his unspoken question. “They will remain that way—unless you destroy yours, in which case your end of the deal will be considered forfeit, and I get to keep your voice.”

“You don’t get to keep it otherwise?” Lance asks.

Haggar shakes her head. “If the terms of the deal are met—if you get a kiss from your prince—you will get your voice back. The deal will have been satisfied. The magic will no longer require your voice as payment.”

He nods. Hesitates. And then, before he can change his mind, he loops the necklace around his neck until the empty link settles next to his concealed heartstone.

“As you wish,” Haggar whispers, and suddenly the water is spinning around the two of them, pulling at their hair. Around them, the room is chaos, yet they remain still at the center of it.

Haggar reaches out, having looped her own necklace around her neck, and pulls the chain from him until the links are twisted around each other. Her other hand grasps his wrist, and he in turn grasps hers. One of her tentacles twines around their linked arms, holding him in place even if he had decided to back out in the last minute.

“ _This prince of the sea, beloved of She, wishes to become human—so it shall be,”_ Haggar chants. He has a moment to wonder if the bad rhyme is necessary, and then she’s continuing.

The rest of their deal follows—his voice as payment, the consequences should he not succeed.

“ _A kiss is the price, to seal that for which he makes his sacrifice.”_

The rhyming makes him feel like he’s living out a bad romance story. He’d complain about it, if the one speaking it wasn’t Haggar.

She speaks again in a different language—one he’s never heard before, ancient and powerful.

His throat begins to burn, hotter and hotter until he thinks he might scream—and then a glow spills from his lips and onto Haggar’s amulet, and he knows that if he wanted to scream, he wouldn’t make a sound.

She pushes the potion into his empty hand, grip tightening on his wrist as she continues chanting in that ancient language. The sea stirs around him, changing from unconcerned to questioning to desperate.

She misses him—he can hear her calling, and it almost breaks his heart.

Haggar’s tentacle pushes the hand holding the potion upwards, towards his mouth, and he locks eyes with her as he does as she asks, lifting the bottle to his lips as the light burns brighter around the locked necklaces.

He drinks—the burn in his throat worsens, and then suddenly it’s engulfing his whole body, pouring fire into his veins until his mouth opens in a silent scream, for all the good it does.

His bones crack and twist, shifting—and then Haggar isn’t speaking, and the water is slowing, and he’s human, and there is no air.

_There’s no air._

Haggar cackles, eyes glimmering with glee, and she releases him, falling backward back into her shadows even as he reaches for her—reaches for something, someone, anything to help him to the surface.

He struggles, his body still aching and slow and terribly shaky from the transformation. His lungs burn with the rest of him—and then there are arms wrapping around him, pulling him close, tugging him out of the cave and up, up, up, until his head breaks the water and he gasps, heaving in his first breaths as a man.


	7. Chapter 7

“You stupid _dumbass_ ,” Hunk chokes out through tears, even as he rubs soothing circles on Lance’s back to help him cough out the last of the seawater he’d swallowed.

Lance would say something to reassure him—a joke, probably, like “I’m only a _little_ drowned”—but his throat still tingles with the aftereffects of Haggar’s magic, reminding him exactly why he can’t.

He pats Hunk’s shoulder consolingly as best as he can—somewhat awkwardly, from this angle. Hunk buries his face in his neck with a quiet whimper, and he wishes he hadn’t left without telling him where he was going.

Hunk always thinks the worst. For him to find Lance like he did…well, he’ll probably have nightmares. And now Lance won’t be there to wake him up and comfort him when he has them.

He traces the runes for ‘I’m sorry’ on Hunk’s back, and he pulls away, sniffling, to peer at Lance with watery eyes.

“Don’t be sorry. I know you were just trying to keep me safe, or—keep me from stopping you, or whatever. Just—please don’t do that again? Okay? I almost had a heart attack when I woke up and noticed you weren’t there.”

Lance nods meekly, and Hunk’s gaze turns to a suspicious squint.

“Why aren’t you talking? Does your throat hurt from the saltwater? Are your vocal cords different as a human?”

Lance winces, and then shakes his head. In answer, he holds up the amulet from Haggar.

Hunk stares at it cluelessly for a moment, and then it clicks, and his eyes widen as he glances between the amulet, to Lance’s throat, to his eyes. “You didn’t.”

He nods.

“Oh, _Lance,_ ” Hunk breathes, and crushes him in a hug. “You big dumb beautiful fish.”

Lance tickles the scales of Hunk’s tail with his new toes as a reminder.

“Don’t even try—you’re still a fish to me. Once a fish, always a fish, or something like that. Now, hold on to me so you don’t drown again; I have to get you onto proper land.”

Lance does as asked, wrapping his arm around Hunk’s waist. He doesn’t bother trying to help by kicking his legs; he knows Hunk’s swimming is far more powerful than any human’s, and he’d probably only slow them down by trying.

“How are you going to explain things to the prince without your voice? I’d say you could write, but you don’t know how to write the human language except for that one time Pidge taught you how to write your name, which doesn’t really count. And I don’t think any of the humans know our runes? Maybe some of the scholars, I guess, from studying old stories. Do you think he’ll recognize you? What if he doesn’t? And how are you planning on getting to him in the first place? He is a prince, after all—”

Lance sighs—he knows Hunk rambles when he’s nervous. He also knows that the rambling will never end if he doesn’t do something to stop it.

He starts tracing runes into the bare skin of Hunk’s back—they’ve been communicating this way since they were kids, when they had to sit through stuffy diplomatic meetings where they’d always get scolded for talking out loud. So long as he goes slow, Hunk will understand.

It’s a long swim.

By the time they get to land, Hunk is more annoyed with him than scared or angry.

“So let me get this straight—you have _three days_ to get the prince to kiss you, or you get turned into sea foam for a thousand years and then you _die._ And if you do get kissed, you’ll live a human life, and _only_ a human life, even though it’s shorter than the life you would’ve had as a merman by about, oh, just a few _thousand_ years.”

Lance shrugs, nodding.

Hunk glares at him, letting go and crossing his arms now that they’re in the shallows and there’s no risk of Lance drowning. “You’re _stupid._ ”

Lance frowns, crossing his arms right back.

“Okay, okay, but—c’mon, Lance, three days? How are you going to pull that off? You don’t even know how to get to the prince!”

Lance shrugs, but pulls at his heartstone, tapping the shell with a fingernail—strange, so strange, and so soft compared to the claws he’d had before.

“So he went to the sea witch, just like we told him _not_ to, I’m guessing?” a familiar voice calls, and they both spin to find Pidge standing on the beach, pants rolled halfway up her calves and worn satchel slung over her shoulder. “I don’t see why you’re surprised; we knew he would.”

“Yeah, but I was _hoping_ he wouldn’t. I like to try and believe the best of people,” Hunk sniffs.

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Sure. Anyway, I brought clothes. Or, well, I brought an old shirt of my brother’s. It’s all I could get without raising suspicion, but it should be enough to cover the important things.”

Lance raises an eyebrow.

She shakes a finger at him warningly. “Don’t even start. I _will_ leave you naked on this beach.”

He raises his hands in surrender—and then turns to grin at Hunk, who sighs long-sufferingly and slaps his tail against the water.

“Come here, Lance; we need to get you dressed. The prince takes a walk on this beach with his dog every afternoon, and he’s supposed to be here soon.”

With a shrug aimed at Hunk, Lance stands, grinning in amusement when Pidge immediately rolls her eyes to heaven and tilts her head up, beseeching the sky as though pleading for patience with some invisible god.

“I hate you,” she says.

“Humans are so weird about bodies. It’s just _anatomy._ What’s weird about it?” Hunk complains, and it’s Pidge’s turn to sigh.

“We’ve talked about this, Hunk. It’s a privacy thing—a respect thing. Also, I’d just kinda prefer not to see Lance’s junk. Or anyone’s junk.”

Lance stumbles his way through the surf to the beach where Pidge is holding out his clothes, still not looking at him, and then stares cluelessly at the handful of fabric he has. He understands the general idea of a shirt—but which way is the front? Why are there ties?

Pidge risks tilting her head forward just far enough to look at Lance’s face, and must see the confusion there, because she reaches out and grabs the shirt from him again, very pointedly not looking any lower than his shoulders, and shakes it out.

“ _This_ is the front. You pull it on over your head, and it laces at the collar so it doesn’t fall off your shoulder.”

Lance nods understanding, happy, and takes it from her again, pulling it over his head as she said—and then he gets stuck in the middle of it, because there are three different holes and somehow he _can’t_ find the one for his head.

Hands grab his through the fabric, guiding his arms through the right holes and then pulling the fabric down with a sharp yank so his head finally goes where it’s supposed to and the shirt settles on his shoulders.

“There,” Pidge says, aggrieved. “Just don’t spread your legs or go up the stairs in front of your prince, and you’ll be just fine.”

The shirt is long enough that it seems like more of a dress, honestly, ending just above his knees. He doesn’t mind it.

“Okay, now—I _think_ you know enough about the human world to get by. But if you’re unsure of something, either avoid it or look to see what everyone else is doing and copy them. Do you have anything that can mark you as royalty that you could have plausibly managed to hold onto during a shipwreck?”

Lance shakes his head, then makes a face at her.

“Yeah, I know, you want to tell Keith that you were the one who rescued him. Well, tough luck, buddy, because there’s no way you can explain that to him without a voice, and until you get it back, there’s no way he’ll believe you. He’ll just think you’re crazy.”

“He’ll think that anyway,” Hunk chimes in, cheerfully. Lance turns to glare at him, but he only shrugs, looking very much the opposite of apologetic. “Also, Lance, would your necklace work? Not the amulet, the other one.”

Lance widens his eyes at Hunk, because—yeah, it might work as a sign of status, but it’s not something he _should_ flaunt, not when it’s as dangerous as it is.

“Humans won’t know what it means, Lance,” Hunk adds. “Show Pidge.”

Reluctantly, Lance reaches up, separating the shell concealing his heartstone from Haggar’s amulet and twisting the shell so it opens and reveals the glow of his heartstone.

“Whoa,” Pidge says, blinking. She tilts her head. “Yeah, that’ll work. What’s that made of? Some kind of gemstone?”

Lance shrugs, and tucks the necklace under the collar of his shirt.

“Well, whatever it is, it’s definitely not something that a normal person would have. So he’ll know you have royal blood of some sort, which is good. Mostly because it’ll convince his advisors to let you stay when he decides to take you in.”

There’s the sound of a bark, distant, from the other end of the beach, around the bend of the cliffs, and Pidge straightens with alarm.

“Oh, shit—Hunk, can you swim me to the cove? The prince can’t see me here; he’ll get suspicious, and there’s nowhere on the beach to hide.”

Hunk nods, already reaching out—Pidge pauses, just for a moment, and looks at Lance.

He can see the worry shining through in her eyes for the first time.

“Good luck, Lance,” she says, voice soft. “Be careful, okay? Stay safe.”

And then she lifts her bag up against her chest, holding it above the water, and wades to Hunk until he can hook an arm around her waist and tow her away, swimming parallel to the beach until the rocks in the water grow in size and number and then turning away towards the hidden cove that people can only get to if they have a boat.

Or if they happen to have a merman as a best friend.

Lance lets his legs fold in on themselves, dumping himself onto the sand, and sits, clenching his hand around his heartstone through the material of his shirt.

 _I hope this is worth it_ , he thinks, and then there’s another bark and a familiar voice yelling in alarm before suddenly he’s on his back, with a dog licking at his face.

He sits up before Keith ever gets there, submitting to the dog’s attentions with an affectionate smile and petting his ears whenever he slows down enough for Lance to touch him—his whole body is wiggling with excitement, and Lance wishes he still had his voice so he could coo at him.

“Red! NO, Red, down—oh,” Keith says, stopping dead. “Oh—are you okay? I’m sorry if Red scared you; he’s not usually this friendly with strangers. You—um.” Keith stops suddenly, brow furrowing as his eyes finally fall on Lance’s face. “Do I know you?”

Lance stares up at the prince, and the way the sunlight forms a halo around his hair, and hopes that the adoration on his face isn’t as obvious as he feels like it is.

“Oh, right—here, let me help you,” Keith continues, and offers a hand to help Lance up, using his other hand to steady his shoulder as he wobbles a bit on shaky legs. “What’s your name? Have we met?”

Lance starts to answer, only to remember all over again that his voice is gone when no words come out.

Keith’s expression turns worried, and he steps closer, studying Lance for any sign of pain or injury. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

He taps at his throat with his hand and shakes his head, shrugging.

“You can’t speak?”

He shakes his head again.

“Oh, I’m—were you shipwrecked? How did you get here?” he asks.

Lance goes to mime with his hands, but the movement unbalances him—his foot catches on his ankle, and he pitches forward, into Keith.

“Whoa, careful—careful. I’m sorry; you’re obviously tired, and here I am interrogating you when you can’t even speak…you need help first. Don’t worry. Come on—come on, you’ll be okay.”

Lance’s skin burns where Keith touches him, even through the shirt he’s wearing, and as the prince starts to help him limp and stumble his way up the beach towards the castle just visible over the tops of the cliffs, he’s certain in that moment that he made the right decision.


	8. Chapter 8

Lance will never understand why humans insist on adding something as awful as _soap_ to perfectly good water. Sure, maybe it smells nice, but at what cost? It makes the water taste awful, and it stings his eyes. Plain water can clean just fine, so why bother with soap?

The bubbles _are_ kind of fun, though.

He blows another one off of the palm of his hand, giggling when it floats out of the balcony doors and into the open air.

“Aren’t you the sweetest thing,” one of the ladies attending him coos. He doesn’t quite understand that, either—it made him a bit uncomfortable on behalf of the women at first, before he realized that they really didn’t care. They were the ones that had insisted on wrestling him out of his shirt, after all.

The lady behind him adds more soap to his hair and begins to scrub at it, massaging her fingers into his scalp and carefully swiping excess soap from his brow before it can drip into his eyes.

“Where on earth do you think he came from? Such a handsome young man, you’d think there’d be a worldwide search party out to find him. I know if _I_ lost him, I wouldn’t give up until I’d gotten him back,” the woman washing his shirt says.

Part of him is annoyed that they’ve taken the fact that he can’t speak as permission to talk about him as though he isn’t there. But it has given him some insight into life at the castle, so he won’t complain.

Not that he could, anyway.

“Poor thing,” clucks the oldest woman of the group—Carlotta, she’d introduced herself as. The others hadn’t bothered to tell him their names, maybe because they weren’t expecting to see him much after this. Carlotta had been tasked with his care. “Shipwrecked, didn’t you hear? He could be oceans away from home, you never know. Maybe that’s why no one’s come looking.”

“Oh—oh, Carlotta, you don’t think they believe he’s dead, do you? If he’s the only one that survived the wreck…”

Lance, previously only half paying attention to the conversation and very intrigued by the bubbles, lifts his head, stricken by the thought that his family still doesn’t know what’s happened to him. He made Hunk promise, after all—his sisters, his Mama…none of them know what’s happened to him.

“Oh, hush, Laura—look, you’ve upset him,” Carlotta scolds, and moves forward to gently cradle Lance’s face with her hands. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m sure your family is looking for you. A mother always knows…she won’t give up on you.”

Lance manages to muster a smile for her, and she clicks her tongue, apparently satisfied, before patting his cheek and then stepping back to grab the pitcher of water and pour it over his head, rinsing the soap from his hair.

“Now, let’s get you dressed for dinner. The prince is expecting you,” she says, and this time the smile Lance gives her is entirely genuine.

It takes far longer to get ready than Lance thought it would—Carlotta has very strict ideas about what one should wear to dinner with a prince, and it takes her forever to find something among the options available to them that both fit properly and match up to her standards. And then, of course, she has to try and do something with his hair, and add some sort of odd powder to his face that makes his skin look smoother.

“Hmm. Well, that doesn’t quite match, does it?” she mutters to herself, towards the end, and reaches towards Lance’s necklaces. “Here, darling, let me just—”

But Lance shies away from her, shaking his head and clasping a hand protectively around both the amulet and the heartstone.

She opens her mouth to protest his refusal, but must see something in his face that tells her he won’t be swayed, because she just pats his arm reassuringly. “All right, dear. Why don’t you tuck them under your collar, then? Just like—yes, like so. Perfect.”

Carlotta gives him a once over, and then nods decisively before tucking his hand in the crook of her arm and leading him towards what he assumes is the dining hall.

“Now, I know you’ve already met our prince—young Keith is quite something, isn’t he? Yes, yes, I see you understand. He’s always been quite compassionate for those that need help, after the youth he had. He didn’t always live in the castle, you see. Oh, but that’s his story to tell. He can be a bit reckless, at times, although it’s nothing now like it was in his younger years. He’ll take good care of you, I’m sure—until we can find your family, and return you to them, of course. You’re quite safe here.”

They finally reach the dining hall, and Lance can hear Keith and Shiro’s voices through the open door.

“Be reasonable, Keith—how could he possibly be the same person? You said you heard singing, and he doesn’t have a voice to speak with, let alone to sing with. It’s ridiculous in the first place that you insist you were rescued. It’s much more likely that the tide just managed to catch you and wash you ashore.”

“We were _miles_ out to see, Shiro. If it was the tide that brought me, I would’ve been long drowned by the time I hit the shore. And—I don’t know what to tell you. I just have a feeling.”

“Do you even know if he’s royalty? The laws are very clear on that, Keith; you know they are. And those rags he was wearing—”

“I don’t dress like a prince when I’m out to sea, Shiro. It stands to reason that I’m not the only one. Besides—have you seen the pendants around his neck? There’s no way that someone not of noble birth would own something like that.”

Lance pauses, suddenly nervous, and Carlotta pats his hand. “Don’t be nervous, dear. You look very handsome. Now, go on—go on, honey, don’t be shy.”

She untucks his hand from her arm, giving his hand one last squeeze before shooing him towards the open doors.

He takes a deep breath, steeling his nerves, and steps through.

“Oh,” Keith says, instantly derailed from his argument with Shiro. “Oh, wow.”

Shiro turns to look, and the serious expression melts from his face, replaced with a warm smile. “Well, would you look at that. Carlotta, you’ve done it again.”

Carlotta waves a hand at him. “No, no, the credit goes to him. He’s quite handsome without all this finery; he just needed someone to emphasize that for him.”

She pats Lance’s shoulder one last time, and then turns back into the hall, leaving Lance alone with Keith and Shiro.

“You look wonderful,” Keith says, and Lance smiles shyly, bowing his head in acknowledgement of the compliment.

“Well, don’t hesitate on our account—come on, you must be hungry,” Shiro says, and steps forward to guide Lance to a seat at the table, even going so far as to pull out a chair for him. “You’ve cleaned up far nicer than Keith or I ever bother with, I’m sorry to say we’re both a bit underdressed. It’s not often we have such a lovely dinner guest, is it, Keith?”

Lance doesn’t catch Keith’s answer, too busy staring at the table in front of him. There’s so much there—strange foods of all sorts laid out artfully on silver platters, along with lines of silverware on either side of his plate.

He’s never used silverware, although he’s familiar with the general idea of it. Hopefully that’s enough for him to avoid embarrassing himself.

His fingers are clumsy on the handle, and even clumsier when he actually attempts to use them—he tries to stick mostly to food he recognizes, like the kinds that Pidge has brought him to try, or the ones with fish. Cooked, which is different than he’s used to, but it’s not so bad.

Keith and Shiro do all of the talking, of course. Lance mostly just listens to their conversation, although he only vaguely understands it, since for the most part it’s about Keith’s duties as prince. How the crops are doing, whether it will be enough to fill the castle’s stores for the winter; a recent rash of petty thievery in the marketplace that needs dealt with—

“That’s an interesting necklace,” Shiro says, and Lance looks down, realizing with some surprise that his heartstone has come untucked from his shirt. “Do you mind if I take a look at it?”

Lance hesitates, resting his hand protectively over the gemstone and looking to Keith, instead, who nods encouragingly.

Even if they don’t understand what it means—the power he’d be giving them if he handed it over—he doesn’t want anyone else touching his heartstone.

He lifts it over his head anyway, and starts to reach out to drop it into Shiro’s hand before rethinking it and changing direction to give it to Keith instead.

Keith seems surprised—he looks at Shiro before he takes it, as though unsure that he should do so. He’s careful with it, fingers curling gently around the rough edges of the gem.

Lance sneaks a peek at Shiro, expecting him to be angry or irritated with Lance, but he just seems resigned and mildly exasperated.

“Thank you,” Keith says. Lance smiles at him in response.

He feels the absence of his heartstone the same way he feels the absence of his tail—sharply, with an acute sense of loss and the slightest edge of fear. But Keith doesn’t give the stone to Shiro, or try and break it, or do anything but inspect it closely, rubbing his thumb against the surface of it.

Lance shivers—it feels like there’s a phantom hand tracing down the length of his spine, and he just _knows_ it’s connected to Keith’s hands on his heartstone.

“I’ve never seen a gem like this,” Keith admits. “Shiro?”

Shiro moves closer, looking over Keith’s shoulder, but doesn’t make a move to take the stone from him. Lance appreciates that—it means that he understands that Lance doesn’t quite trust him yet, and he isn’t going to push that trust.

“Hmm. No, it’s not familiar to me, either. Must be rare. Probably extremely valuable,” Shiro concludes. He looks up at Lance for confirmation—Lance gives it to him in the form of a slow, reluctant nod.

Keith hands the stone back to him. “What about the other one?”

Lance blinks at him, brow furrowed. Other what?

“Your other necklace,” Keith clarifies. “I thought I remembered seeing two.”

Lance nods again, and pulls Haggar’s amulet from under his shirt.

This one is more distinctly recognizable—magic, Lance knows, likes the purity of precious gems and metals. It’s no particular surprise to him that Haggar’s amulet chose to take the shape it did.

He doesn’t take this one off—he’s not about to risk Haggar’s spell suddenly breaking in the middle of a human castle—but he does stretch the chain across the table so that Shiro and Keith can get a good look at it.

“Oh, wow,” Shiro murmurs. “Are those black diamonds?”

The amulet is a teardrop ruby, with the top wrapped in fine silver wire that has black diamonds and pearls nestled in the gaps. A crescent of silver is molded along the bottom of the gem, with swirling spokes that point downwards like an upside-down crown.

Keith reaches out to touch the amulet—maybe just to touch, maybe to try and hold it—and Lance pulls away, tucking it back into his shirt.

Luckily, neither of them seem particularly offended by the gesture.

Shiro, for his part, fixes Lance with a thoughtful, calculating gaze.

“You know, Keith—maybe our guest would enjoy seeing some of the sights of the kingdom. Something like a tour?”

Keith shakes himself out of some deep thought—he’d been fixated on studying Lance—and turns to Shiro with an apologetic look. “Sorry, Shiro, what was that?”

Shiro sighs, shaking his head. “You can’t spend all your time moping around, you know—you need to get out. Do something. Have a life. Maybe get some distance from the—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Keith interrupts, blowing out a frustrated breath. “You said something about a tour? It’s not a bad idea. If he’s interested.” He turns back to Lance. “What do you think? Would you like to come with me on a tour of the kingdom tomorrow?”

Lance nods, leaning forward against the table eagerly.

Keith flashes a grin at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“That’s settled, then,” Shiro says. “I’ll inform your advisors that you’ll be absent from the castle for the day.”

“I appreciate it, Shiro,” Keith replies.

Lance smiles to himself, pressing his fingers gently against his heartstone where it rests against his chest. Maybe three days isn’t such an impossible thing after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao ik this literally has no regular update schedule, but bear with me. things are gonna get interesting soon.

Pidge had warned Lance that while Keith was very beloved by his people, he could also be impulsive, reckless, and hotheaded.

He can also, apparently, be incredibly rude.

“Where did you even come from?” he’s asking. What had been an open, honest expression was now shadowed with suspicion. “I got to thinking—I haven’t heard about any recent shipwrecks, and if there’d been one out to sea, the chances of anyone surviving would be practically zero, let alone somehow washing up on shore miles away from the wreck, miraculously free of injury.”

Lance crosses his arms, glaring at Keith. No matter that he has a point—if Lance was here to harm him or the people around him, why would he go to such lengths to fake being the victim of a shipwreck? That just seems extreme.

“And the fact that you can’t speak—that just seems way too convenient, that you can’t explain where you came from or why you’re here or even tell us your name,” Keith continues, and Lance’s eyes narrow further.

He opens his mouth to argue, but no sound comes out, and he throws his arms up, aggravated. He finally settles with his hands on his hips, still glaring at Keith, who has his head tilted, reminiscent of a curious cat debating whether or not to attack.

“I’m inclined to believe you when you say you can’t speak,” he says, and Lance rolls his eyes. “And you don’t seem like you’re here to cause trouble…so you can stay. But I just want you to know that I’m watching you—so don’t try anything.”

Lance’s mouth twists as though he’s tasted something sour. Keith is looking at him, waiting for acknowledgment of the warning, and he very much does not want to give it to him.

He nods, eventually—a sharp jerk of his head—and then spins away, stomping across the hall and down the stairs towards where the carriage that Keith had requested for their ‘tour’ today is waiting.

 _Tour,_ Lance scoffs. _More like an interrogation._

The horses aren’t something he’s used to—he’s seen them before, wild ones, on the beach of an island just off the coast a few miles south of here, but that was with plenty of distance between him and them. 

These ones seem, if possible, even bigger, with hooves the size of dinner plates that stomp impatiently against the cobblestone.

He’s sure that Hunk would be wary of them. Probably several others that he knows would be, too. But he can’t bring himself to fear them, even with their gleaming ebony coats and pitch dark eyes that seem to follow him with an intelligence far beyond what he’s seen of most land animals.

The horses, for their part, don’t seem to mind his hesitation, and stand almost entirely still as he steps shyly towards them, reaching out a hand to stroke along the side of their neck. When that doesn’t seem to provoke a negative reaction, he steps even closer, smiling as he runs his fingers down the middle of the horse’s face.

Its nose is one of the softest things he’s ever touched, and the horse pushes further against the palm of his hand as he pets it, making a low sound in its throat.

“Well, Deimos seems to like you, anyway,” Keith says, and Lance nearly jumps out of his skin at how close his voice is. When he looks, the prince is hovering barely a foot behind him, at his right shoulder. “He’s usually pretty picky about the people who pet him. Half of the castle stablehands are terrified of him.”

Lance can’t help but preen a bit at that information—although he’s starting to think maybe Keith is having him on, what with the incident with Red and now here with Deimos. They’d both seemed to like him perfectly fine, despite Keith’s claims that they were usually more reserved.

 _Deimos,_ he mouths to himself, and then turns to Keith, pointing questioningly towards the other horse.

“That’s Phobos,” Keith answers, and Lance feels a small thrill tingle down his spine that he’d been understood without any struggle. Granted, it’d been a simple enough question—but it still felt nice. “They’re both named after sons of the god Ares. Deimos was the god of fear, and Phobos was the god of panic.”

Lance wants to roll his eyes so badly at that—these horses are absolute sweethearts—but he manages to restrain himself.

Instead, he gives Deimos one last pat on the neck and then climbs into the carriage, settling himself comfortably on the seat.

Keith follows on his heels, sitting next to him and taking the reins. The seat is small enough that they’re barely an inch away from each other, and as soon Keith flicks the reins and the carriage starts clattering over the cobblestones, their thighs brush against each other with every movement of the horses.

Lance doesn’t move away, and even though Keith’s face flushes a light pink when he glances over, he doesn’t move away either.

Maybe he’s not as tough as he’d like Lance to think.

Despite the early hour, the streets are bustling with activity, and nearly every person they pass on their way to the market pauses to wave at Keith and call a greeting. He always smiles at them.

When he notices Lance watching, he scowls, flicking the reins to go faster.

It doesn’t last.

The market is crowded with people, full of life and color and sound, nearly all of it strange and new to Lance. He loves it immediately, and scrambles out of the carriage nearly before it’s stopped, ignoring Keith calling after him to wait and making his way to booths lining the marketplace.

“What brings a handsome young gentleman like yourself here to our humble marketplace today?” an old woman asks, grinning toothlessly. “Perhaps a present for your lover? Or some fine new jewelry? Whatever your heart desires, I’m sure you’ll find it. Let me know if I can help.”

Lance smiles politely at the offer—and the Keith catches up and grabs his elbow.

“There you are—oh, hello, Helga. How’s business?”

“ _Busy,_ ” Helga replies, and then cackles. “Who’s your friend, young prince?”

Keith opens his mouth to answer, and then shuts it again, apparently realizing yet again that he doesn’t know Lance’s name. “He was shipwrecked. We’re taking care of him until we can get him home.”

“How kind,” Helga says. “Better show him the sights, Prince. Perhaps you’ll convince him to stay.”

Keith’s face flushes red, for some undiscernible reason, and he ducks his head in acknowledgement before turning away, steering Lance with him by his grip on his elbow.

“Don’t run off like that,” Keith scolds. “You could get lost. It’s not exactly a small city, you know.”

Lance shrugs, and then sees a trio of people standing in front of a fountain, instruments in hand. He points to them excitedly, tugging on Keith’s shirt, and starts dragging him over there.

“Yeah, fine, sure, we can go see the band,” Keith mutters. Lance ignores him.

Dancing and music are different here, Lance knows, but he thinks he could grow to like it just fine, especially when the woman in the center lifts her small stringed instrument to her shoulder, tucking it under her chin, and starts to play.

At the sound, dozens of people turn to look, and start to gather around. He’s not sure who starts it—but somehow there’s dancing, and he’s grinning, watching in wonder as the people laugh and drag each other into the circle, tapping their feet and spinning around.

A passing young man must see his desire to join somewhere in his eyes, because he gets a sparkle of mischief in his own expression, and then suddenly there’s a hand tugging on his arm and he’s being pulled into the fray.

Keith’s grip on his elbow disappears, but when Lance looks, he sees that the prince has been pulled in right along with him, and actually seems to be enjoying himself as the people spin him around.

The song ends, of course. When it does, Lance sits down on the edge of the fountain, grinning, and Keith sits next to him, red-faced from exertion and out of breath.

“So you like dancing, then?” he asks, and Lance nods happily, still drinking in the sight of the marketplace and the sound of the music.

Behind him in the pool of the fountain, there are fish, and Lance’s face lights up when he sees them—koi, he thinks, as colorful as he remembers them from his visits to distant waters. They follow his fingers as he trails them just above the surface, and he giggles silently at the sight, shoulders shaking slightly.

He finally stops, growing bored with the fish, and looks up, searching for the next place to explore. What he finds, instead, is Keith, eyes fixed on him with some unrecognizable look in his eyes that almost looks like _fondness._

He shakes it off as soon as he sees Lance looking, sadly.

“How do you feel about a boat ride?” Keith asks, and Lance tilts his head in silent question. “There are canals throughout the lower city—it’s sea level, so it’s kind of slowly being overtaken by the ocean. But we just keep building above it, and taking advantage of the waterways for trade.”

Lance nods eagerly—it sounds like the perfect way to see as much of the city as possible without being crushed by the press of the crowds.

It is. The boat is small, with just enough room for them to sit across from each other as Keith rows, and nearly every time Lance turns from his observation of the city itself, he finds Keith’s eyes on him.

It gives him hope.

Eventually, they meet back at the castle, unhitching the horses from the carriage and switching instead to two more horses with a more agile build—Keith has them saddled for them, and a picnic packed into saddlebags, and then helps Lance climb into the saddles himself despite the stablehands standing by to do just that.

He’s nervous, but Keith keeps reassuring him, and the horse doesn’t do more than flick an ear while he climbs into the saddle.

“Her name is Senora,” Keith tells him, before leaving his side to mount his own horse.

Senora follows Keith’s horse without prompting, and Lance winds his fingers tightly into her mane, afraid of falling off.

He doesn’t, somehow, even when Keith picks up the pace.

They leave the city, this time—barely, but they do, taking a well-worn path above the city through the forest, finally stopping at a meadow that has a beautiful view of both the city and the ocean beyond it.

Keith spreads a blanket on the grass and sets out their lunch, and it might be Lance’s imagination, but he seems more relaxed up here. Away from everything.

“I hate that I don’t know your name,” Keith complains.

Lance shrugs. It’s not like he can do anything about it.

Keith’s face suddenly lights up with an idea, and he straightens. “Maybe I can guess it.”

Lance’s face crinkles doubtfully, but he gestures for him to go ahead.

“Okay, okay. Is it Nolan? West? Patrick?”

Lance shakes his head at every name, wrinkling his nose at they get progressively stranger and more unappealing.

Finally, he can’t take it anymore—he reaches across and mashes his hand against Keith’s mouth, effectively stopping the guessing from continuing.

Once he has Keith’s attention, he very slowly shakes his head, and then he pulls away.

Keith blinks. He seems a bit dazed—maybe Lance’s actions surprised him. “Okay, I get it. Guessing isn’t working.”

Lance nods agreement, picking up another slice of unfamiliar fruit and popping it in his mouth, licking the juice from his fingers.

“Could you write it?”

Lance stills. He could, couldn’t he? That was one of the only things Pidge managed to teach him about the human alphabet.

Still, his handwriting leaves something to be desired.

He sticks his hand out, palm facing down, and wobbles it from side to side in a so-so gesture. Keith’s face lights up nonetheless, and he scrambles to his feet, going to where the horses are quietly grazing on the edge of the meadow, digging through one of the bags tied to the saddle.

He comes up with a sheaf of paper and a stick of charcoal, and takes both over to the picnic blanket, setting them on Lance’s lap and then sitting back expectantly.

Lance sighs, but he picks up the charcoal.

His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates, doing his best to carefully form the proper letters so that they’re mostly legible. He writes big, using only the capital letters because he remembers them the best, and grins triumphantly when he finally finishes, turning the page around to show Keith.

“Lance?” he asks, and Lance nods eagerly. “Okay, then, Lance. I’m glad I’ve gotten the chance to get to know you.”

Lance smiles, and they finish their picnic in companionable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm begging you....review...pls......my family is dying.....


	10. Chapter 10

 The beach at night is beautiful. 

Lance had known this, like he'd known many things, but now he knew it all over again, from a different perspective, and it's somehow more beautiful than ever before. 

Maybe it's the legs. 

Keith walks next to him, close enough that their hands keep bumping against each other. Lance hasn't found the courage to entwine their fingers, but he wishes he could every time the prince's bare skin brushes his and sends electricity tingling up his arm. 

"I've always loved the ocean at night," Keith murmurs. His gaze is on the horizon, where the stars meet the water. "The ocean at any time is spectacular, but there's something about it during the night that just...makes the universe feel quiet." 

He seems embarrassed by the words after they leave his lips, like he's bared more of his heart than he meant to, and glances quickly over at Lance, who nods in agreement. It seems to ease him, and the tension that had drawn his shoulders up around his ears falls again. 

The ocean is quieter than usual tonight—not still, not silent, but peaceful and calm, and Lance can almost imagine that it's for him, except that he knows the ocean can't hear him anymore. Can't sense his presence near or in her waters. 

He steps forward anyway, kicking off his sandals, and uses this as the excuse he needed to grab Keith's hand and playfully tug him towards the water.

"What? Do you want to swim?" Keith asks. 

Lance shakes his head, and lets go of his hand to take the few steps backwards into the water, letting the waves splash around his ankles and grinning at the feeling. He kicks at the water, sending an arc of it straight towards Keith, who sidesteps so it misses him. 

Keith smirks. "Are you sure you want to start this? Because I'm pretty sure I'll win." 

Undeterred, Lance leans down to dip his hand in the water, flinging ocean spray straight at Keith's face—he hits this time, leaving Keith spluttering, but he laughs through it, and then kicks off his own shoes. 

"So that's how you want to play it, then? It's on," he says, and sprints straight at Lance, who probably would've squeaked in surprise had he been able to make a sound and starts running away from him, parallel to the beach, slowing occasionally in order to splash water back at Keith.

The prince gains on him quickly, of course. Lance still isn't quite used to his new legs, and even if he's sure the length of them would normally give him an advantage, he's unused to them enough for Keith to catch him without too much difficulty. 

"Caught you—" Keith says, reaching out to press his hand against Lance's back, and then he trips on a drift of sand invisible under the water and pitches forward, tackling Lance to the ground so spectacularly that he doesn't even have a chance to register what's happened until he's on the ground.

Lance sits up, coughing saltwater, and Keith pushes himself onto his hands, expression torn between concerned, apologetic, and triumphant. 

"I'm sorry—" he starts, but before he can finish, Lance splashes water directly into his face, and he cuts himself off with an indignant, " _Hey—_ " 

And then Lance is laughing soundlessly, whole body shaking with it, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes and entire face no doubt a brilliant red, and Keith falls silent, apparently struck by the sight of it. 

When Lance calms himself enough to breathe again, Keith is looking at him with such a soft, open, vulnerable expression that he can't help but smile softly and reach out for his face—

But Keith leaps up before he can make contact, offering a hand to help Lance up and then brushing the sand out of his clothes.

"Do you want to go back to the castle now? I know it's not so bad now, but it'll get colder as it gets later into the night, and you're not wearing very warm clothes, and of course now we're both wet from the water, too—"

Lance answers his question by turning and walking a few meters up the beach before collapsing unceremoniously into the sand, laying flat on his back to stare up at the sky and patting the empty space next to him. 

Keith sighs, but smiles indulgently and joins him. 

"So you like the stars, too, then?" he asks, and Lance nods without looking over at him. "Dancing, the ocean, and stars. Anything else?"

Lance thinks about it, and then rolls over on his side to poke Keith in the cheek, grinning when it makes him blush. 

"Wha—you've only known me for two days!" Keith protests, and Lance shrugs, moving his hand to tap his finger on Keith's chest, just above his heart. "What does that mean?" 

Lance scrunches his face in frustration. He mouths the words exaggeratedly, moving his lips slowly as Keith peers intently at them, trying to puzzle out what he's trying to say. 

"Look--no, good--good? Good...heart? You think I have a good heart?" 

Lance nods, and presses his hand once more, insistently, against Keith's chest to emphasize his words before rolling back over to look at the stars again. 

"How can you know that about someone you've only just met?" he asks, quiet, and when Lance looks over, he's staring at the stars, looking as lost as Lance has ever seen him. "How can you know that at all?"

Lance turns his body to face him again, and waits until Keith's attention is focused on him before he points at his eyes, and then towards Keith. 

"You see it?" Keith asks. Lance nods. "How?"

Lance sighs, and opens his mouth once before closing it and shaking his head, frustrated. 

"Too hard to explain without talking?" Keith says, with a rueful smile, and Lance nods, apologetic. "It's okay. I shouldn't have asked." 

But he looks sad now, and Lance hates it, so he looks up at the sky and then draws a shaky version of one of the simpler constellations in the sand between them, pointing at it when he's finished, pointing to Keith, and then touching his own lips. 

"The Big Dipper? What about it?" Keith asks, and Lance rolls his eyes before pointing to the drawing again and then opening and closing his mouth in imitation of talking. "You want me to talk about it? Oh, wait—do you want me to tell you our story behind the constellations?" 

Lance nods, beaming triumphantly. He knows from brief conversations with Pidge that the human stories about the constellations are different than the mer's, but he's never heard any of the myths in detail. 

"Do you care which constellation I start with?" Keith asks, and Lance shakes his head, settling back down into the sand. "Okay, um—my favorite is Orion. That's the one that looks like a warrior, with those three stars forming his belt," Keith starts, pointing out the constellation he's talking about as he speaks, and Lance traces the constellation with his eyes. It's one he's familiar with, but they call it the Archer, not Orion. "There are a lot of variations on his story, but the most common one is..." 

And he continues, weaving a tale about love and loss and vengeance, and Lance hangs on his every word, switching very early on to watching Keith's face with rapt attention rather than the stars, loving the way he uses his hands to act out parts of the story, the way his expression grows more and more content and peaceful as he talks, looking at the sky...

"Do you want to hear another?" Keith asks, after telling Lance how Orion had been rewarded and punished at the same time by being made immortal among the stars only to be chased across the sky forever by his enemy. 

Lance starts to nod, and then his eyes catch on the ocean, and he startles before grinning and sitting up, reaching over to push at Keith's shoulder until he follows suit.

"What, what is it—" he starts, only to suck in a surprised breath at the sight of the water.

It's glowing, blue sparks of luminescence lighting up the waves, faint as they first see it and then only growing in strength as they continue to watch. 

"I've seen this before," Keith whispers, voice hushed, like he's afraid if he talks too loudly the light will disappear. "Only once, and not for long. It's beautiful." 

Lance nods agreement, and leans his shoulder against Keith's, watching the glow as it waxes and wanes, almost like breathing. 

When he looks over, he finds Keith already looking at him. 

"I've never felt like I do when I'm with you," he whispers, and then they're kissing, and it's every bit as brilliant as Lance imagined it would be—his hand buries itself in Keith's hair, and it's so incredibly soft, and Keith's lips are chapped but they're gentle and they taste like the ocean, and Lance feels the amulet on his chest flare with warmth before going cold and he doesn't even care.

Because Keith is kissing him. And the ocean is singing and lit by hundreds of blue stars, and just for a moment, the world stops around them and everything is perfect.

And then he presses closer, tugging slightly on Keith's hair, and he suddenly jerks away, gasping loudly, shaking his head as he scrambles backwards through the sand.

"I can't, I can't, I'm sorry—" he says, and Lance can see the misery plain on his face, together with a wild-eyed, frantic fear. "Lance, I can't. I can't." 

Lance knows that Keith can see the hurt on his face. He reaches for the prince, hand outstretched, but Keith shakes his head again and climbs to his feet, running unsteady fingers through his hair and pacing across the beach. 

"I wouldn't have—I don't want to hurt you—but this—" he says, starting over every time he makes it halfway through a sentence, obviously frustrated, unsure of how to explain. Finally, he sighs, turning to where Lance sits, watching, hand gripping tight around his heartstone, and blurts, "I'm betrothed to someone else." 

Lance gapes. Out of everything he'd expected Keith to say, that hadn't been even close to his mind—Pidge had said nothing of it, and neither had anyone in the castle...but he knows by the shattered look on Keith's face that it's true. 

"I don't love her," Keith hastens to add, as though that makes it any better. "Well, not romantically. We've been friends since we were children...we made an effort to get along, although there were some—rough patches—because we've always known that we were intended to marry. The betrothal agreement has been in place since I was born."

Lance's mouth is closed now. There's a feeling in his chest, a tickle in his throat, and he knows that he could speak now...but he can't force the words past his lips. 

Instead, he slumps in the sand, chill now in the cool ocean breeze without Keith nearby, and watches and listens as Keith continues speaking. 

Continues breaking his heart.

"I meant what I said, that I've—that I haven't ever felt the way I do when I'm with you. But I can't betray her. This—this can't happen, Lance, no matter how much I might want it. I'm sorry."

Lance suddenly can't stand to look at him anymore, and he stares out to the ocean, eyes open but unfocused, unseeing. He shoulders curl inwards, as though his body is trying to defend him from the pain he feels, unaware that it comes from within. His grip tightens around his heartstone until it cuts into his palm, but he doesn't let go. 

"Lance, I—" Keith starts, and then sighs again. "You'll freeze out here. We should go back to the castle."

Lance shakes his head, and waves absently at him—a dismissive gesture.

 _Go on ahead,_ it says. 

He could say it aloud, he knows he could now. The terms of the spell have been met. But he can't convince his tongue to curl around the words.

"Are you sure?" Keith asks, hesitating. "I could stay..."

Lance shakes his head again, and turns to give Keith a look—one that, he hopes, conveys the words he can't bring himself to speak. 

"Right," Keith mutters. "You need—you need time to think. You'll be safe here, but—if it gets too cold, promise you'll come back?" 

Lance nods, turning away from the prince once more to look at the water. The plankton are moving on—the glow has moved down the beach, leaving only a handful of scattered lights behind. Soon they'll be gone altogether. 

"I'm sorry," Keith says again. And he leaves. 

Lance waits until the sound of his footsteps fade, and then waits some more, before looking after him—his figure has long since disappeared from the beach, but Lance looks anyway. 

And then he sighs, and stands, and stumbles until his feet hit the waves, and then he sits again and lets the water wash over him. 

The ocean can hear him again, can sense him. She croons as soon as the water touches his skin, overjoyed, and then her song turns sad as she senses his pain, senses what he's done, how he's changed. 

 _Hullo, beautiful Blue,_ he murmurs mentally, reaching his mind out to brush against her presence. She flows into his mind, along with a sense of relief at being joined once more, and he can feel her looking through his memories, seeking answers, seeking the cause of his sorrow. When she finds it, she sends waves of comfort crashing through him, and he feels his heartstone warm against his chest. 

He stares at his legs. Wiggles his toes and watches them move. 

 _I was so stupid, Blue,_ he whispers to her. He doesn't need a voice for her to hear him.  _I should've known better, should have waited to make such a huge decision, should have gone on with the dreams instead of seeking him out, should've realized that being soulmates with a human could never work...oh, Blue, what have I done?_

She sings to him, trying to comfort him, trying to reassure him, and he cries silent tears that mix with the ocean, watching the moon cross the sky and unable to bring himself to move, even when his skin grows nearly numb with cold. 

At some point, he senses her attentions turn elsewhere, split between him and some other place, some other person. He's too tired to bother asking her about it, and he gets his answer anyway when Hunk shows up only twenty minutes later, still rubbing sleep from his eyes as he swims as far into the shallows as he can without getting stuck. 

"Lance, what—" he yawns, and then notices Lance's tears, and jerks upright, instantly alert. "What's wrong? What happened?"  
Lance hugs his knees to his chest, staring beyond Hunk at the horizon, where the sky is just beginning to lighten. 

"He's engaged to someone else," Lance whispers, voice raw, just loud enough to be heard, and Hunk's voice crumples as he realizes all of the implications behind that. 

Of Lance's voice being back. Of his tears. Of him alone on the beach, Keith nowhere to be found...

"Oh, Lance," Hunk says, voice thick, and Lance launches himself forward, water be damned, cold be damned, and into his best friend's arms, crying into his bare shoulder as though he's lost everything. 

Because he has. And it's been sinking in the whole night, as he sits and thinks and cries and wonders why no one ever told the truth about the pain of heartbreak--he's lost everything. His home, his family, his way of life—his heart. 

And Hunk, despite everything, despite the fact that Lance brought this on himself, still holds him close, keeping them both upright in the water, and comforts him until the night well and truly begins to fade. 

The gray is turning to pink when Hunk finally pulls back, reluctantly, with pain in his eyes and tear tracks on his cheeks. "You should go back," he says. "They'll be wondering where you went. And you need dry clothes, and to get warmed up..."

Lance only nods, and stands in the shallow water on shaky legs. He looks once to the sea, longingly, and can feel the heartbreak showing plainly on his face, and then he turns towards the cliffs, towards the land, towards the castle—towards Keith, the prince who can never share his heart. 

He stumbles onto the dry sand, pausing only once more to offer Hunk a look of remorse—an apology that he can't say, even if he knows Hunk would never ask for it. Would never blame him. 

And then he makes his way back to the castle, dripping water, chilled to the bone by the breeze coming off the water, and somehow manages to find his way to his room without running into anyone, where he strips his wet clothes off, letting them lie in a heap on the floor, changes into a nightshirt, and falls into his bed. 

The events of the night and the previous day have exhausted him enough that sleep doesn't take long to find him, and he succumbs to it gratefully, glad for the blissful unawareness it offers him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm officially moved back into my dorm for the school year, so updates might take even longer now, since classes start back up again on Monday and I'm planning on getting a part-time job on top of that. Thanks for understanding.


	11. Chapter 11

Lance isn't sure if he's avoiding Keith or if Keith's avoiding him--maybe they're avoiding each other. Either way, it works for Lance, because his heart hurts enough without forcing himself to be in Keith's company. 

He found out on the third day that Keith's betrothal wasn't a far off, distant, maybe-not-even-gonna-happen sort of thing. 

His fiance was supposed to arrive by the end of the week. The wedding was scheduled for a few days after her arrival. 

Lance just--had the  _worst_  timing, because they'd been betrothed for years and he'd just  _happened_ to show up right when Keith came of age to be crowned King instead of Regent, which meant marriage. 

Shiro keeps him company a lot. Maybe to keep an eye on him as a potential threat, or maybe because Keith asked him too, or maybe just because he wants to. Keith must've told him what happened, because the first day he shows up to guide Lance around the castle and take him to dinner, he puts a hand on Lance's shoulder with a sympathetic look on his face and apologizes. 

He might be some sort of saint. Lance wouldn't be surprised. 

He meets with Hunk at night, and mostly they just sit together, although sometimes Hunk can't help but fill the silence. He tells Lance about what's been happening at home--the younger teens have been hunting with a dolphin pod, his older sister Valentina met someone but won't tell anyone who it is, Hunk has been forced to watch the hatchlings in Lance's absence...

It hurts, hearing about them, and more often than not he gets a lump in his throat like he's swallowed a bitter pill and it got stuck. But it would be worse not to know. 

He still doesn't speak. Hunk only asks once, and seems to understand, even though Lance's answer is to open his mouth and then shake his head.

He wonders the answer to the question himself, wonders if there's something wrong with him, if he's broken. Maybe he lost his voice when he lost his heart. 

And he's not--he's not talking about the prince that ducks the other way when they see each other in the halls, who's getting married in a week. Not really. It had only been two days. A kiss. It hurt, but--but he would've been fine. He would've gotten over it, probably. 

But this is not his home, and these people are not his own. 

His heart belongs to the sea--belongs to his family, always. And now he can never be with them again, because he is achingly, awfully, permanently human, and he has lungs that can't breathe in water, and his body is mortal and fragile and the sea would batter him to pieces. 

"Do you--" Hunk starts to say, one night, and then stops, clearing his throat. His voice is soft and quiet when he speaks again, almost like he's talking to a wounded animal, or a scared child. Lance thinks maybe he's somehow both at the same time. "They're worried about you, Lance."

He looks down, where the tide is washing over his feet. 

"They know that I know something--your mom knows that you're alive, at least--but they can hear how sad the ocean is for you, and it's killing them to not know where you are." 

Lance opens his mouth. Closes it. Sighs. 

Nods.

"Are you sure?" Hunk asks, hesitant. "I don't have to tell them, I just--I know they won't hate you like you think they will, Lance. They're not like that and you know it. They'll be happy just to know that you're not hurt or--or being held prisoner somewhere." 

Ironically, that's how he feels. 

This body is a cage. It doesn't belong to him. 

He goes back to the castle feeling heavier than usual, wondering how his sisters will take the news. Hunk might wait until the morning to tell them--he probably will, actually. No point waking them up for it. He knows they wouldn't go back to sleep after finding out. 

Keith's betrothed is supposed to arrive in the morning. Lance wants to hate her, but--if she makes Keith happy, he doesn't think he'll be able to.

Sleep doesn't come easy. His bed is too big for him. His room is too quiet. He can't hear Hunk's snores from the next room or the sound of his cousins giggling down the hall and shushing each other so they don't get caught staying up late. 

He can't hear the ocean, either. The castle is too far. Sometimes he can just barely hear a faint whisper of a song carried on the breeze, but mostly--silence.

He finds himself wandering the halls a lot at night, even when his bones weigh him down with exhaustion and all he wants is rest. He startled a few servants that way at first, but now they're used to him. Sometimes if he looks particularly tired, they'll smile kindly at him and lead him back to his room and tuck him into his bed, and he'll sleep then, better than usual, because it seems like they care and it almost reminds him of a family. 

Sometimes he wonders if he's a ghost. He doesn't speak. He doesn't have a purpose. He just walks, aimless, and stares longingly at the ocean every time he gets the chance. 

Most of the people in the castle seem to pity him. Poor shipwrecked boy without a voice. Poor boy who fell in love with the unattainable prince. Poor boy who misses home, but can't tell them where it is. 

Coretta is busy, more often than not. She still takes time to talk to him, sometimes, filling him in on the castle gossip, worrying over how the preparations for the wedding are going. It's okay, but he prefers the girls that have been assigned to take care of him while Coretta is busy with more important things.

There are two of them--twins, he thinks, or maybe just sisters. They gossip more than Coretta, and give him the dirty details she never would spare time for, which he appreciates, because he has sisters and cousins and nieces who did the same thing at home. 

They comb his hair and marvel at how soft it is, and complain jealously about how unfair it is that he doesn't have a single blemish on his skin, and dress him in comfortable clothes that still flatter him. 

They also never talk as though he isn't there, which a lot of people have taken to doing, just because he can't talk back to them. The closest they get to it is when they get into a petty argument, and even then he still feels included because they'll often turn to him to settle it, asking yes or no questions to get his opinion. 

"Are you really a prince?" Greta asks him, one morning. Her eyes are bright. She's just finished gushing about how beautiful the gowns the tailors are preparing for the princess are. 

He nods, and she squeals, clapping her hands over her mouth and bouncing in her chair in delight. "That's so cool! Are you the heir to the throne?"

He shakes his head at that one, and holds up seven fingers. 

"Seven--oh! You're the seventh in line? Does that mean you have six older siblings? Are they brothers or sisters? Or both?"

Lance makes a face, unsure how to answer that, and she picks up on it immediately.

"Oh--right, sorry, that was rude of me. Do you have any brothers?" 

He shakes his head, and her eyes go wide.   
"All sisters? Wow, that's so many. Gwen and I have four older brothers, but we're the only sisters," she says. Gwen nods agreement, and takes that as her cue to jump in on the conversation.

Gwen is a bit more reserved than Greta, although not by much.

"How does that work, in a royal family? Everything I've read and heard about says that when there are more people who could inherit the throne, things can get messy. And you said they're all sisters? Does that mean a woman will rule? Will she have to get married?" 

Lance shakes his head, and then pauses, wondering how to explain. 

Eventually, he sighs, turning to Greta, and holds out his hand. She lights up as though he's just told her she's actually a princess, and grabs the pad of paper and stick of charcoal from where they rest beside her on the sitting room table. 

Early on, they'd come up with the idea for him to try and draw more complicated ideas. He was terrible at it, but usually he managed to get his point across. They had a good time trying to work out what he meant, anyway, and he enjoyed making them laugh. It was the closest he could get to forgetting.

He draws a face at the top, adding a crown and lots of hair, and points to it for a moment, looking up at the girls to see if they understand.

"Is that the queen?" Gwen asks, and he nods. "Where's the king?" 

Lance shakes his head and draws an X next to the face. 

"There's no king?" Gwen asks, and when he nods, seems to realize, gasping. "Oh, your father--oh, I'm sorry, Lance."

He just shrugs. He was young when he died. He doesn't remember him very well.

He draws six more faces underneath the first, adding long hair to all of them. A crown goes on the first figure. 

"Oh, so that's your oldest sister, then? She'll take the throne? And she doesn't have to marry?" 

Lance nods. 

"That's amazing. I thought if you wanted to be queen, you had to marry a man. That's the way it is here," Greta says. 

"With so many of you...is everyone really okay with your oldest sister taking the throne? There are so many royal families that fight each other over the throne, it's just hard to believe," Gwen interjects, still looking at the drawing. 

Lance nods, and then shrugs. He doesn't know how to tell them the way his family is--they all love and respect one another, and they all help the crown in some way or another, so it doesn't really feel like a sacrifice for only one of them to get the throne. 

A bell starts ringing--it's from the village, but they can hear it loud and clear, especially with the doors to Lance's balcony thrown open. 

"Oh!" Greta gasps, eyes shining, and she bolts out of her chair, running to the balcony. Gwen follows her, and Lance follows Gwen, taking slow steps to see what has them so excited--although he can guess.

"Look, look, look--it's the princess!" Greta squeaks, bouncing back and forth on the heels of her feet. "Oh, I just know she'll be beautiful. I've never met her--she used to visit here all the time when she was a kid, but she hasn't been here in years, and I didn't work here when she was a kid. I was too young. Oh, this is so exciting!"

Lance doesn't agree, but he can't very well say that. And he doesn't want to bring down the happiness and excitement Gwen and Greta are feeling, so he just inclines his head in acknowledgment and hangs back to let them watch as the entourage of horses and carriages makes their way up the hill towards the castle gates, which have been opened in anticipation of the princess's arrival. 

...........................

Lance is expected at the ball that's being thrown to celebrate the arrival of the princess. He would do almost anything to get out of going--but he'd been maneuvered handily into agreeing to go by the combined efforts of Gwen, Greta, and Shiro, of all people.

He spends the whole day avoiding everyone, slipping from hiding place to hiding place, and eventually holing up in his room when it becomes impossible to avoid the bustle of frantic preparations. He's alone, for once, because the twins have been pulled from their duties for the day to help in the kitchen. They still helped him get dressed this morning, of course, but then they'd left not soon after with matching apologetic expressions and a sparkle of excitement in their eyes. 

It's not every day a princess arrives after all. Let alone one betrothed to their prince. 

But, of course--it only makes the ache in Lance's chest grow deeper. So he sits on his balcony and stares out to sea, letting his mind get lost in memories that feel a million miles away. 

The girls find him there an hour before the ball is meant to start. They've guessed a bit of what makes him avoid the prince so stubbornly, because they're one of the few that have bothered to struggle through the difficulties of communication in order to get to know him. They're smart, both of them. It's not hard to see the heartbreak in his eyes whenever Keith is mentioned. 

"General Shirogane has requested that you attend the ball," they tell him, voices quiet and unusually subdued. 

Lance nods mechanically. Shiro is still determined to drag him out of hiding--to help him, probably. It doesn't matter. Keith isn't the only thing causing his grief. 

He follows the twins back into his room, and lets them fuss over him, dressing him in beautiful clothes in tones of blue that match his eyes. The ball is more formal than anything he's attended thus far, so he's intrigued but not surprised when the outfit they dress him in is finer than all the clothes he's seen. The finishing touch to it is a shimmering gossamer cape that drapes asymmetrically across his frame, and when he smooths his hand over it, the silky texture of it captivates him. He didn't know human clothes could be so soft. 

"You look very handsome," Gwen tells him. "It'll be difficult for everyone to keep their eyes off of you." 

"I've seen the princess," Greta admits. "She's beautiful, just as they say. But I think you're even prettier than she is." 

Gwen cuts a sharp look towards her sister, but doesn't disagree. 

Lance just nods, fidgeting with the pin that holds his cape in place. He blows out a breath, trying to expel some of the nerves buzzing just underneath his skin, and the twins put a hand on each of his shoulders, guiding him onto his feet and then pulling him into a hug.

"You'll be fine," they tell him. "You don't even have to stay the whole night. Just for the opening ceremonies, and then a few dances. Of course, you can stay longer if you want to--but no one expects it of you. Not even Shiro."

Lance nods again, trying to ignore the tears pricking at his eyes. These girls--they don't even know who he is, not really, but they treat him as though he's their family. 

They each hook arms with him, and march him through the door, determined not to leave him to make the trip by himself, even though they'll likely get scolded if they're seen as they are, stepping on equal footing with a prince. 

Lance doesn't want them to get in trouble for him, but he'll admit that if they weren't there, he probably never would have made it to the ballroom. 

Shiro is waiting for him. Well, he's overseeing the line of nobles that stretches down the hallway, keeping an eye out for danger or anyone out of place, but when he sees Lance arrive, he breaks away from his station by the ballroom doors and heads towards him, dismissing the twins with a friendly nod, unblinking at their break in protocol. 

Lance appreciates that about him. 

"I'm glad you felt up to being here tonight, Lance," Shiro says, smiling warmly. "I know Keith will be happy to see you in the crowd." 

Lance bows his head, acknowledging the statement as politely as he can even if he desperately wants to make a face at the suggestion. 

"Gwen and Greta certainly do their job well," Shiro continues, clasping Lance's shoulder. "You look very much like the prince that you are." 

Lance offers his own smile, hoping that it looks more genuine than it is. Shiro's not wrong—he is a prince—but it still feels like a lie, considering the fact that he's made sure he'll never be able to return to his kingdom again. 

"You'll do just fine," Shiro tells him. "If you want to be announced, I'm sure I could figure something out..." 

Lance shakes his head. He'd rather not go through the trouble. 

"That's alright. But, if you wouldn't mind, I'd still like to introduce you to the princess," Shiro says, turning back to observing the nobles without leaving Lance's side. "Part of the ball tonight is introducing her to the nobles of our kingdom, as well as neighboring kingdoms, and even though we plan to help get you home someday, for now, you do live here. It's only proper for the two of you to be aware of each other." 

Lance nods, resigned. He's not sure what he'll do when his luck runs out—eventually someone will get the idea to pull out a bunch of maps and ask him to point out his country, and then he'll be fucked, because he doubts they'll let him get away with pointing at the middle of the ocean without an explanation. 

Until then, though, he should at least try to be friendly with the people letting him live here. And it's not Allura's fault that she's betrothed to Keith—or that Keith led him on, even let him kiss him, before finally telling him that he was supposed to be married in only a few weeks' time. 

Okay, so maybe Lance is still a little bitter.

Shiro claps him on the shoulder again, apparently satisfied by the few remaining nobles in the hall waiting to be announced, and gestures for Lance to follow. "Come with me—it’s nearly time for the opening ceremony, and I'm not cruel enough to abandon you to the crowd. The single women in the crowd would be on you like a buzzard to carrion." 

Lance grimaces at the comparison, but follows without complaint. 

The ballroom is a mass of swirling colors—the edges of the room are bursting with flowers, filling the area with their fragrance, and the chandeliers are all lit up, setting the gorgeous gowns and clothes aglow with light. Lance suddenly itches for his sketchbook—one of the hobbies he's taken up in lieu of other activities to keep him occupied. The twins had just gotten their hands on some paints for him, as well—oh, what he wouldn't give to be able to just sit and sketch the people here all night. 

It's beautiful. It's like a sea of a different sort, full of faces and color and the babbling chatter of hundreds of people. 

"Pretty incredible, isn't it?" Shiro says, apparently noticing his wide-eyed wonder at the crowd. "Crowds like this usually make me uncomfortable, but—it’s hard to be uncomfortable when you're surrounded by so many beautiful things. You can get lost in it, you know?"

Lance smiles at him, placing a hand on his upper arm to signal his agreement, and to reassure that Shiro hasn't overstepped the boundaries of their relationship with his admittance. Shiro worries about that a lot—like whenever he talks about himself or anything other than the work he does, he's suddenly shared too much. 

"Oh, there's Lord Garric—do you think you can find your way to the refreshments table alright? I know I said I'd stay with you, but there's something I need to discuss with him..."

Lance is nodding before he's even finished, waving him off. Shiro smiles gratefully at him.

"I'll find you when I've finished," he promises, and lets himself be swept away into the crowd.

Lance makes his way to the table he can see at the side, laden with food and drink for the guests. He's not particularly hungry, but he picks up a small pastry anyway, more to use as an excuse not to talk than anything else.

Of course, that plan fails nearly immediately, when a woman at least twice his age steps up to him, skirts swirling and cheeks heavy with rouge. 

" _Lovely_ ball, isn't it?" she chatters. "The princess is certainly lucky, to have captured a prince as would greet her with something as extravagant as this." 

Lance nods agreement, smiling, wondering if he's going to have to figure out how to mime that he doesn't have a voice if she starts questioning why he isn't talking. 

"Oh, and  _you_ —well, you're quite the handsome fellow, aren't you?" she says, eyes twinkling with interest. "I don't think I've seen you around before. Are you a lord's son?" 

Lance starts to reach up to his throat, planning on attempting to get across that he can't actually speak, when she waves a hand dismissively.

"Oh, no matter. Come, young man, I must have a dance," she orders, and grabs his wrist in an iron grip to drag him to the dance floor. 

He blinks in surprise, but doesn't pull away from her, unwilling to cause a scene. Besides—even if human dances are a bit different, he does quite enjoy them. 

She seems taken with him, chattering on and on about how lucky she was and how lucky  _he_ was for her to have caught him before anyone else snatched him away, and then jumping from subject to subject, including the prince, the upcoming nuptials, the food, the dresses, and gossiping about several of the nobles that showed up or didn't show up, until they've danced through three songs and she's too out of breath to go on. 

He escorts her to a table at the edge of the floor, and brings her a glass of punch, but when he hesitates by the empty chair next to her she shakes her head and waves him on, telling him to have a good time.

He ends up back by the refreshments, snatching another pastry and then retreating to the wall where the servants stand and wait to be needed. 

The twins are here somewhere, probably, or maybe in the kitchen. They're certainly not on this wall, although there are a few familiar faces that offer Lance an amused smile when he places himself halfway out of sight next to a curtain, behind one of the flower arrangements.

He'd rather not be waylaid by another middle-aged bachelorette and dragged to the dance floor. Or, worse, find himself having to explain to people that he doesn't speak. 

The servants, thankfully, don't seem in any hurry to give him away, and pretend that he's not there as he munches morosely on his pastry. 

Shiro finds him there, of course. But then, he was actually looking. 

"It's no good to hide all night, Lance," he says. "You should try to enjoy yourself." 

Lance shrugs. Shiro shakes his head, equal parts amused and exasperated, but doesn't try to force him on to the dance floor, so Lance counts it as a win.

"Keith is going to introduce the princess officially," Shiro tells him. "Any minute now—"

The band fades into silence at the cue of a trumpet, and the crowd quiets, turning to face the balcony that oversees the ballroom, where Keith has stepped up.

As Lance watches, he turns, offering his hand to someone just out of sight, and then the princess is stepping into view.

It's as though the entire room gasps collectively--she's the prettiest human Lance has ever laid eyes on. Thick white hair is braided and piled high on her head, leaving only a few stray curls to frame her face, and a circlet crosses her brow, marking her as the princess that she is. Her gown is blush pink, the perfect compliment to her brown skin, and she walks so elegantly it's as though she floats through the air. 

"My betrothed, Her Majesty Allura of Altea," Keith announces, and a cheer ripples through the crowd. "Welcome her as one of us, for Arus is and always will be a place she can call home." 

Allura inclines her head to Keith, smiling faintly, and they take one step back together, in sync with each other. 

"Let the festivities commence!" Keith's voice rings out over the crowd, and a second cheer goes up before the orchestra begins playing once again. 

"Short and sweet," Shiro notes. "Not that that's a surprise. Keith hates public speaking." 

Lance snorts, and then presses a hand to his mouth, surprised at the sound. Shiro seems surprised too, and then he grins, resting his arm over Lance's shoulders. 

"Come on, then--there are a few people I'd like you to meet." 

.......................

If Lance didn't know better, he'd think that Shiro is trying to set him up. 

Every single one of the people Shiro has introduced him to have been young, eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, without exception, and they've all been incredibly enthusiastic and obvious with their flirting. 

Lance, for his part, has done his best not to offer anything in the way of encouragement, and sticks to polite smiles and nods. Shiro explains his quietness, garnering sympathetic gasps and several "Oh, you poor dear"s from the women, and, at one point, an appraising look and a suggestive eyebrow that immediately made Lance feel unclean and uncomfortable--Shiro had steered him out of that conversation pretty quickly after that, and offered an apologetic look, which Lance appreciated. 

He's starting to reach his limit just a little over an hour into it, and apparently Shiro can tell, because after they wrap up their conversation with yet another bachelorette, instead of finding someone else to introduce Lance to, he steers them off to the side and hands Lance a glass of bubbly golden liquid that makes his throat tingle pleasantly. 

Alcohol, then. He's had substances with similar effects before, so he doesn't sips it gratefully, glad for the way it starts to gradually relax his tense shoulders.

"Ready to meet the princess?" Shiro asks, after Lance has drained his glass, and Lance sighs, glancing back at the crowd and wrinkling his nose. It might be pretty from afar, but after spending nearly an hour surrounded by the body heat of hundreds of strangers, he can't help but feel a little bit suffocated. "Oh, it's not as bad as all that, is it? I think you'll like Allura. She's a lot like Keith." 

Lance shrugs, and then gestures for Shiro to lead the way, following close behind when he starts walking. 

He's trying not to blame Allura. The whole situation with Keith isn't her fault--but a small, awful part of him still wants to resent her for being the one to get his soulmate instead of him. 

He pushes down the bitterness. He won't let himself take out his negative emotions on someone who doesn't deserve it. 

Keith and Allura are on a dais above the crowd--well, more like a balcony, really, except that a staircase connects it to the main floor and allows nobles to go and greet them a few at a time. The others that are already there step out of Shiro's way as he passes, deferring to his authority, and Lance has a brief moment to spare to be grateful for the fact that he doesn't have to hang around in a line for an awkward wait before they're turning the corner and suddenly standing directly in front of the prince and princess.

They're sitting in cushioned, high-backed chairs, pushed close together, and Keith is smiling in amusement at something Allura said when he looks up and sees Lance. A flash of pain washes the amusement from his face and makes his smile waver, before he straightens properly in his seat and greets them both with a nod. 

"Your Highness," Shiro says, bowing slightly to Allura in a show of respect. Then he ruins it by turning to Keith with a crooked grin. "Keith." 

Keith rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "You see? No respect in my own castle. I should get a new commander." 

Allura laughs. "You're always so dramatic. And Shiro, you mustn't address me so formally--you've known me since I was a child. Allura will do just fine." 

"Allura, then," Shiro repeats, smiling. "How goes it? Keith isn't giving you too much trouble, is he?" 

"Oh, no more than usual," Allura replies, breezing over Keith's indignant spluttering without a single hesitation. "You truly are a saint for dealing with him alone all these years. Who's your friend?" 

Her gaze turns on Lance, and he forces himself not to shrink at the full attention of both her and Keith--especially Keith. Those eyes still make his soul ache something awful. 

"Oh, how rude of me. Allura, this is Lance," Shiro introduces, placing his hand lightly on Lance's shoulder. "He was shipwrecked here a few weeks ago."

"Oh?" Allura asks. Her gaze sharpens with curiosity. "Why haven't you helped him home yet?" 

"Ah, well, it's more complicated than just that," Shiro admits. "He can understand our language, but he can't write or read it, and he can't speak at all, so simply asking isn't much of an option."

"Oh, how dreadful," Allura murmurs. "What a terrible fate, to be stranded so far from home." 

Lance shrugs. He doesn't really enjoy talking about the whole affair.

Allura looks between the three of them--Lance, Keith, Shiro--and then settles back on Lance, scrutinizing his face, before smiling gently and standing, stepping forward and offering her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lance." 

He steps forward to take her hand, returning the smile. The moment his palm touches hers, electricity shoots up his arm, making him flinch--but Allura's grip tightens, and when he looks up at her, she's gaping at him in shock, eyes wide. 

Faint markings on her cheekbones are glowing ever so slightly, and suddenly Lance understands. 

He grins, eyes widening in delight, and reaches forward to pull her into a hug, happiness bubbling in his chest when she returns it without so much as a second of hesitation. 

"You  _are_ far from home," she says, awed, and pulls away just enough to hold him at arm's length and look him up and down. 

"What just happened?" Keith whispers--loudly, not at all subtle, but Allura and Lance ignore him. 

Lance throws open the gates to his mind and hurtles out of them, projecting a tentative tendril of thought towards a sparkling beacon of light that he recognizes easily as Allura's mind. She lets him, establishing a connection between their thoughts that allows them to communicate. 

 _Hello, merprince,_ she murmurs, and his excitement rings between them like the chimes of a bell. 

 _I thought all the sea witches were destroyed centuries ago,_ Lance says, and shared grief pulses across their bond. He pauses for a moment, just basking in the bliss of discovering that the human world has some magic left after all. Her thoughts sharpen with pained regret, thinking on the events of the past, and he fixes his eyes on hers so that she can see his words in his eyes, and says,  _You have given me the greatest gift and joy simply by surviving._

She blinks, and pulls one hand it away to press it to her cheek, overcome. Tears glisten at the corners of her eyes, but don't fall. Gratitude replaces the sting of her regret. 

 _You have a story to tell,_ she says, and her hand falls from her cheek, halting in an aborted movement to touch his face and then settling at her side.  _I hope you will trust me enough to share it._

Lance tilts his head, simple agreement, and taps his chest with his knuckles, just over his heart. 

She copies the gesture, and releases him, stepping away reluctantly, although she doesn't return to her seat. 

"Do you...know each other?" Shiro asks, clearing his throat. 

"In a way," Allura replies vaguely. "I know the kingdom from which he hails, although it is with much regret that I say you will be unable to help him return there."

"What? Why not?" Keith asks, sitting up even straighter in his chair. "Where is it?" 

Allura smiles sweetly at him. "Some secrets are best kept as secrets, my dear. But I daresay that he will be content to remain here a little longer."  

Lance nods agreement with her statement, and reaches up to wrap his fingers around his heartstone as he hasn't in days. 

It pulses warmly underneath his hand, and he finds himself smiling, truly, even with Keith's dark eyes looking on, curious and sorrowful. 

This world is perhaps not as empty of kindred spirits as he'd first believed. 


	12. Chapter 12

The twins find Lance in such a good mood the morning after the ball that they spend the whole time assisting him shooting him suspicious looks. He actually catches one of them trying to subtly sniff his breath, as though certain he can't be this happy sober. 

Which is probably his fault. He's given them no reason to believe that he's ever anything but subdued and melancholic. 

He bats her away from him good-naturedly, and she rolls her eyes but smiles, and after that they start to just go along with it, chatting away at each other and at him, still unbothered by the fact that he can't use his voice to answer. 

After a short lunch, a page knocks at the door, and informs them all that Allura has requested his presence for afternoon tea in the gardens. The twins both squeal, delighted, and drag him back inside to force him into different clothes, apparently finding something about his current outfit lacking for a date with a princess.

He doesn't mind their attentions. It reminds him of his sisters.

The walk to the garden is quiet, and he makes it by himself, but he doesn't feel lonely as he strides down the stone halls--for the first time since he started living in the castle. 

When he reaches the gardens, he finds that Allura has had a picnic set up in a spot that overlooks the beach, giving them a perfect view of the crystalline waters, and the tea service is set out on a wooden tray, complete with biscuits and miniature cakes. 

"Lance," she greets, smiling warmly. "Thank you for joining me." 

 _Thank you for inviting me,_  he replies, taking a seat across from her. He's mildly surprised that it's only the two of them--he would have figured she'd be unable to tear away from the duties and responsibilities of a monarch-to-be for even a second, including entertaining lords and ladies for tea time.

"I quite appreciate some peace every once in a while, don't you?" she asks, answering his unspoken question. "I would go so far as to say that I can't function without it." 

He smiles, lips twisting up and eyes crinkling, and she pours him a cup of tea, dumping sugar into it without prompting before handing it to him. 

"Would you like to tell me your story?" she asks quietly, stirring sugar and cream into her own cup of tea. 

He sips his tea, thoughtful. He would prefer the grief that permeates every aspect of his story not ruin his good mood, as it likely would if he were to tell the story in any long, drawn out manner, but...

He looks up, sending a questioning probe towards her mind, asking permission--she nods minutely, so he invites her into his mind and closes his eyes, holding his teacup securely settled against his thigh so as not to spill it if he startles. 

Her presence in his mind is the polar opposite of what he'd felt with Haggar--light, and airy, and gentle. He relaxes instead of tenses, and wonders at the way that her intrusion in his thoughts doesn't feel like an intrusion at all. 

He guides her to the story she seeks, and she reaches out--

The memories flash behind his eyes, too quickly for him to fully live them out, and despite how long it feels he knows it's only been seconds when she pulls away with a gasp. 

His eyes flutter open--hers are already on him, brows furrowed with grief and sympathy. 

"I am sorry for your loss," she murmurs, and he inclines his head, going back to sipping his tea and basking in the sunlight, breathing in the fresh air rolling in off of the ocean. 

When he looks up again, she's worrying at a pendant hanging from her neck, brow furrowed, and he sets his tea down, reaching for her. She shakes herself out of it before his hand touches hers, turning to face him again and trying for a reassuring smile that doesn't fool him for a second.

She sighs, letting her hand fall back to her lap. "I'm taking him away from you." 

Lance shrugs.  _That's not your fault._

"But it is," Allura protests, and he shakes his head. 

 _I do not blame you for this,_ he tells her.  _The fault is my own. I knew the risks--and so I took them. My grief and regret are mine to bear._

"I wish I could help you," she whispers. 

 _You are,_ he says.  _You have._

She smiles sadly, appreciative of his reassurance, and he pulls his own hand away from hers to pick his cup of tea back up. 

 _Tell me about your life,_ he says, and her expression softens. 

"As you wish, my prince," she replies, and the overwhelming affection he feels for her at the title warms him from head to toe. 

......................................

Allura and Lance spend the next day and a half finding any and every excuse to visit each other—the others seem puzzled by this, but no one seems inclined to try and tell Allura what to do. Lance, for his part, tries his best to keep a respectful distance from her when they’re together in the public eye, to avoid giving fodder to the rumor mill.

Perhaps because of Lance’s quick friendship with his fiance, Keith starts avoiding Lance much less than before. Interactions between them are still stilted and awkward more often than not, and Lance’s heart seizes when he remembers the upcoming nuptials that will effectively separate him from both Allura _and_ Keith, but it’s easier to forget the swirling colors of his heartstone when he’s found someone who understands all that he’s lost.

The world of men seems to have it out for him, though, because it’s been only two days since the ball when everything changes once again.

He and Allura are out for a walk on the beach, Allura’s ever-present attendants and guards trailing a respectable distance behind them. She’s telling him a story from her childhood about the time she and Keith tried to run away together and live in the forest rather than have to grow up and rule a country and marry each other, and he’s listening with an amused smile tugging at his lips, watching the way she gesticulates with her hands as she talks, when they turn a sharp corner around the edge of the cliffs and are abruptly confronted by a scene they hadn’t been expecting.

The remains of a battered lifeboat grate at the shore, listing heavily to one side, and several men and women in various states of consciousness are scattered both in and around it. Upon spotting Lance and Allura, a few of them cry out in relief and move towards them, aborting the movement when they see Allura’s guards reach for their weapons. Allura trails off into silence, and Lance steps half in front of her on instinct, eyes inspecting the scene for any signs of danger.

His gaze alights on the crest carved into the bow of the lifeboat—Keith’s crest. It’s one of his.

He relaxes minutely, and Allura steps forward, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“They need help,” she says, and he hesitates before nodding—she heads towards the shipwrecked crew immediately, ignoring his exasperated sigh, and he follows after shooting a meaningful look towards her guards.

“Thank the gods,” one of the men murmurs. Allura directs her attention towards him, kneeling in the sand at his side. “I thought we’d never be found.”

“How long have you been here?” she asks.

“We only made it to the beach a few hours ago,” the man replies. “Early this morning, when it was still dark. Apparently dark enough that those posted in the watchtowers didn’t see us coming, judging by your surprise at finding us here.”

“What’s your name?”

“Galin, Your Majesty.”

“That lifeboat bears the crest of Prince Keith’s navy.”

Galin nods, scrubbing his hand down his face. “We’re what’s left of the crew of the _Nightingale.”_

Allura exchanges a look with Lance, and then another with the leader of her guards.

“That ship was manned by a crew nearly sixty strong,” the guard says. “You’re telling me that the eleven of you are all that’s left?”

“Wish I could tell you it wasn’t true,” Galin says tiredly. “Listen, I’ll give you a detailed explanation—but first, I’ve got injured. It’s been three days since any of us have had anything to eat, and all we’ve had to drink is what little rainwater we could collect. We need medical care, and rest.”

Allura nods. “Of course. Ethan, dispatch someone back to the castle to inform them of the situation.”

The head of the guards—Ethan, apparently—nods assent and turns back to consult with the group of guards and attendants. After a moment, one of Allura’s junior attendants jogs back the way they came, swiftly turning the corner and disappearing from view.

“How bad are the injuries?” Allura asks. “Is anyone unable to move on their own?”

Galin nods, grim-faced. “Three are unconscious, and there’s another with a bad leg injury. Everyone else can still walk, but we’re slow, and we won’t be any good in helping to carry the others.”

Allura nods again, and turns to survey the situation, looking between her guards and the exhausted crew.

“Ethan, we’re going to carry the injured back to the castle,” she orders, and Ethan immediately protests.

“Your Majesty, I must disagree—we should wait for help to arrive,” he says, and she fixes him with a stern look that has him shrinking back.

“They can’t stay here, and as long as it’s been for them with their injuries, a few minutes might make the difference between life and death. We have the ability to get them help faster, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

There’s a flurry of activity as they gather the bedraggled crew together, categorizing injuries and health as they go—none of them are entirely unscathed, and all of them are exhausted enough that walking up the beach is definitely not going to be easy-going for them.

Lance looks over the situation. There are four people that can’t walk, and at least two that will probably require assistance. Allura has three guards—Ethan, Farah, and Warren—and four attendants. Of them, only the guards and one of the attendants are physically capable of carrying someone, and Lance doesn’t like the idea of all of the guards having their hands too full to defend Allura should a situation arise.

He taps her on the shoulder to get her attention, and when she looks to him, he gestures to himself and then towards the unconscious injured.

“Are you sure?” she asks, catching his meaning immediately. When he nods, she copies him, and waves him off, trusting that he’s capable.

He might not be the most coordinated person ever—legs are hard to get used to—but his upper body is just fine. Merfolk are naturally stronger than humans, so he’s not nearly as strong as a human as he was as a merman, but for a man, he’s on the stronger end of the spectrum. Picking up and carrying the dead weight of an unconscious sailor through shifting sand isn’t _easy,_ but he doesn’t spend the ordeal struggling overmuch.

Keith meets them halfway to the castle with stretchers, more guards, and several medics, who swarm their group immediately and move the more severely injured to the stretchers. Keith makes a beeline for Allura, inspecting her for injury and finding only damp sand clinging to her skirts where she’d kneeled on the ground. His eyes leap to Lance next—and stay there, studying him much the same way he’d studied Allura, which might honestly be more of a surprise to Lance than the discovery of the shipwrecked sailors.

“They said they’re from the _Nightingale_ ,” Allura tells Keith, before he can ask, and he nods sharply, finally tearing his gaze away from Lance to direct his attention towards the men and women being tended to.

“I recognize Galin,” he says. “He wasn’t a member of the command on the _Nightingale_ , but Shiro and I had our eyes on him as having potential for future captaincy. The others are familiar as well, although I’m afraid I don’t know any of them by name. I suppose the others all perished, then?”

Allura nods, lips thinning, and Keith scrubs his fingers through his hair.

“So many dead,” he murmurs, then shakes his head, forcing the grief from his expression. “They’ll be taken care of. We’ll question them tonight, after they’ve all had the chance to rest and recuperate a bit.”

“So soon?” Allura asks, surprised. Keith nods, grim.

“The _Nightingale_ was one of our best ships. Nothing short of a hurricane should have managed to cause this sort of devastation, and we would’ve been well aware of a storm that massive. We need to know what happened—and if we have a new enemy.”

Keith’s words cause foreboding to weight heavy in the pit of Lance’s stomach, and he looks back towards the sea—still just as calm and tranquil as it’s been for the past week.

He remembers a comment Hunk made a few nights ago—that Haggar wasn’t happy he’d managed to meet the terms of her contract. She hadn’t left her cave, but everyone could sense her rage.

Bitterness curls under his tongue. He has a terrible feeling about this.

…………………………….

Lance isn’t invited to join them when they go to talk to Galin and a few other crewmembers. He’s not surprised by this—although he’ll readily admit that it still makes something ache in his chest to not be included.

Instead of sitting in his room and waiting to hear the explanation secondhand from Allura, he goes back to the beach, relishing the cold sting of the breeze against his skin, and sits on the sand, placing his hand in the water to call to the ocean.

She can sense him, and hear him, even if he can’t sing back to her anymore. His vocal cords are different now—his voice is different. It’s yet another reason why he can’t bring himself to speak more often than not.

Hunk shows up only a few minutes after Lance withdraws his hand from the water, surfacing several meters away, where the water is still deep enough for him to keep most of his body underwater.

“Lance,” he starts. There’s concern on his face, and something else that Lance doesn’t recognize. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Lance opens his mouth, trying to say something, and only a rasp comes out, voice rough from disuse. He grimaces, clearing his throat, and tries again, hating the way his human voice sounds more and more with every syllable.

“A ship from Keith’s navy was wrecked. Badly enough that only eleven members of the crew—out of sixty—survived. He and Allura are getting an explanation now, but I thought I’d ask if you knew anything about it.”

Hunk’s lip twitches, and Lance is instantly suspicious. That’s his tell when he’s keeping something from him or about to lie.

“Hunk,” he says warningly, and Hunk exhales explosively, tail smacking at the surface of the water behind him.

“It’s Haggar,” he admits, and Lance’s voice shrivels in his throat. “She’s angry that you actually managed to fulfill the contract. She’s gone completely off the rails—maybe it was just bad timing, maybe something happened to finally drive her completely insane—but whatever it is, she has it out for you. Except that, because of the terms of the contract, she can’t attack you directly, unless for some reason you attacked her first.”

Hunk just looks at him for a moment, brown eyes dark and sympathetic, and Lance presses his knuckles to his sternum where it feels like a lump of stone has suddenly taken up residence.

“She’s going after Keith,” he manages, hoarse, and Hunk nods.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “If you could keep him on land—get him to call back his ships—”

Lance shakes his head immediately. “No, he won’t do that. His kingdom relies on trade to survive—which in turn relies on the navy. And even if that wasn’t the way it is, he wouldn’t listen to me.”

Hunk’s face crumples in sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Lance.”

“Stop that,” Lance scolds. “Stop acting like we’ve already lost. Haggar isn’t invincible, and she might stop now that she’s destroyed one of his best ships.”

“Maybe,” Hunk says, unconvinced. “She seems to have calmed down a bit, but—she’s still angry, Lance. I wouldn’t trust her to let this go.”

Lance stands, brushing sand from his clothes.

“Everything’s going to be just fine, Hunk,” he says, a strange calm settling into him. If anything, the worry on Hunk’s face grows.

“Lance,” he says, quiet. “What are you planning?”

Lance looks up, past his friend, towards the white-crested waves in the distance, and shrugs.

“I’m not planning anything,” he says. It’s almost not a lie. “Be careful, Hunk, okay? If Haggar’s really lost it, she might decide to go after my mom or my sisters. Look after them for me?”

“You know I will, Lance,” Hunk replies. “But—”

“I should be getting back,” Lance interrupts. “They’ll be wondering where I am.”

He turns and heads up the beach before Hunk has the chance to call him back. By the time he has the courage to look back, there’s no sign of his friend.

The ache in his chest grows and settles into his bones, until his whole body feels heavy, and he feels his breath hitch for a moment, tears prickling at his eyes, before he manages to force the pain back down and continue towards the castle.

Everything’s going to be fine.


	13. Chapter 13

The next day is busy at the castle, busier than usual, with the excitement of the shipwrecked sailors. They’re all on their way to recovery—even those with more severe injuries are expected to survive. Their care and accomodations, as well as preparations for the wedding to take place at the end of the week, keep the inhabitants of the castle running on their feet without much opportunity for rest.

Which means, mostly, that Lance is left alone. He can’t decide whether he prefers it that way—whether the decision he’d made the night before will be easier if he distances himself, or whether he’d be happier to spend the moments he can in Allura’s calming company.

Gwen and Greta are enlisted by Coretta to assist the castle seamstresses with last minute alterations to clothes intended for the wedding, and Lance spends his day sitting on the balcony, fingers wrapped around a cup of tea that’s been long cold, eyes lost somewhere in the line where the sky meets the sea.

The invitation comes around six for him to join Allura in her rooms for dinner. She would normally eat in one of the banquet halls, with Shiro and Keith and some of the other advisors and nobles, but he guesses that after the activities of the day, she’s not quite feeling up to it.

To refuse would be to worry her and raise suspicion, so he sends the messenger back with his acceptance and dresses himself mechanically in appropriate evening clothes.

It takes longer without Gwen and Greta’s help, but he manages. He checks his reflection in the mirror to be sure he got all the buttons properly fastened, and finds his eyes drawn to his face instead.

He doesn’t often look closely at his reflection. Mirrors weren’t particularly common underwater. But he takes the time now, and almost regrets it.

The shadows under his eyes aren’t new. He’s noticed them before. Sometimes when they’re particularly bad, Gwen and Greta take care to conceal them using a colored powder, which helps him look marginally more awake and lively. They didn’t have time for that today.

His appearance is fine. The clothes fit perfectly, as always, and the jewel-toned jacket hugs his shoulders in a way that he supposes is flattering. His skin is clear, hair soft and styled—but his _eyes._

They give too much away. He can see the heartache there.

He summons a grin to his lips, and—that’s a bit better. If he thinks about afternoon tea with Allura and bioluminescent plankton and the warmth of Hunk’s hugs, he almost can’t tell it’s fake.

It’ll be fine. Allura is likely too busy to notice that there’s been a change in him, and if she does, he can write it off as a bad day. After what he’s lost, those are bound to occur, and he knows that she knows that.

He sighs, pulling his heartstone from the collar of his shirt and opening the shell that conceals it to look at it for the first time since he showed it to Keith and Shiro.

His hands still. His brow furrows. He swipes his thumb across the surface, but nothing changes.

The same colors are there. Blue, red, purple—but it’s different. The colors all swirl and dip together, fading darker and lighter in different sections of the stone, like the watercolor paintings Pidge once showed Lance.

And there’s a new color—a soft pink, like the color of clouds at sunset, around the edges and in the direct center.

He doesn’t know what this means. There’s a guess, at the back of his mind, but—it doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore.

He closes the shell, and tucks the stone back under the collar of his shirt, striding purposefully out into the hall towards Allura’s room and doing his best to look less like the mess that he is.

………………….

Allura is not the only person in her rooms.

That’s not particularly surprising. She’s not usually alone—attendants, guards, advisors; they all follow her everywhere.

What is surprising is that the other person is not, in fact, an attendant or a guard.

It’s Keith.

Lance cuts a sharp look towards Allura upon noticing their company, but she just gazes serenely back, picking up her glass to take a long sip of wine.

He clenches his teeth, but forces the stiffness out of his shoulders and takes a seat in the only empty chair, which happens to be directly between the two of them.

He nods a greeting at the both of them, and an attendant—ha!—materializes from seemingly out of nowhere to serve his food and pour wine into his empty glass.

When the attendant backs away again and Lance looks up from his plate, Allura and Keith seem to be locked in some sort of silent argument that seems to rely mainly on looks and eyebrow twitches. After a second, Keith’s gaze flickers to Lance, finds him watching, and falters, eventually breathing out a near silent sigh and sitting back in his chair, shoulders slumped, apparently defeated.

Allura, meanwhile, leans back, a small, satisfied smile tugging at her lips. When Lance raises an eyebrow at her, she shrugs, lifting one shoulder in a minute response.

“So, Lance,” Keith starts, clearing his throat and breaking the silence abruptly enough that Lance’s head snaps to look at him a little faster than the situation warrants. “Um—you look well.”

At the other end of the table, Allura groans in a way that would’ve had her socially massacred if they were in a public setting with other nobles. Keith seems unsurprised by the reaction, although his face heats in what Lance recognizes as embarrassment.

“You’re both ridiculous,” she announces, and Lance makes a face at her—what does he have to do with Keith’s awkwardness? She makes a face right back at him, and then spears a piece of fruit on the end of her fork, pointing it towards him. “You look like you’re being tortured.” She points the fruit at Keith. “And you’re acting like having a conversation is as bad as having a rotten tooth pulled.”

Lance sighs, picking up his wine and taking a large gulp before swirling the glass around, staring morosely at the red liquid.

“This is stupid,” Keith mutters.

“ _You’re_ stupid,” Allura shoots back. “You told me you wanted to talk to him—so talk.”

Lance looks up at that, confused, and finds Keith’s face even redder than before, if possible.

“Okay,” he says, more to himself than Allura, it seems. “Lance, I owe you an apology.”

Lance stills at that, lowering his glass and glancing between Keith and Allura. Allura waves her hand impatiently at Keith, and he grimaces before continuing.

“I’m sorry about what happened between us,” he says carefully. “I led you on, and that wasn’t fair or kind. More than that, though—I’m sorry for the way I reacted to the situation afterwards. Instead of apologizing immediately or making sure you were alright, I avoided you and essentially abandoned you in a place you were unfamiliar with and likely uncomfortable in. I regret my actions, and I would be incredibly grateful if you could find it in your heart to forgive me…and possibly allow us to start over, as friends this time.”

Lance blinks. His eyes flicker between the two of them again, unsure whether or not Keith means what he says or whether Allura coerced him into talking—but her expression tells him that what Keith says is genuine.

He takes a deep breath through his nose, chewing on his lower lip, finger tapping absentmindedly against the side of his glass—and nods, just once.

“Are you—sure?” Keith squeaks, and if Lance’s voice wasn’t still dead in his throat he might’ve laughed.

He nods again, and then raises an eyebrow when it looks like he might pursue that line of questioning further, which effectively silences him.

Allura claps her hands together, smiling broadly. “Brilliant! We’re all friends now. We should celebrate with dessert.”

Keith snorts. “You’re just using that as an excuse to eat chocolate.”

“Since when does anyone need an excuse to eat chocolate?” Allura asks, and Lance tilts his wine glass in her direction in a silent salute.

………………………..

Despite still being ridiculously busy with the wedding and everyday business of running a kingdom, Allura and Keith make a concentrated effort after that to include Lance. He spends almost not time in his room the next day, instead accompanying the two of them as they make final decisions on wedding preparations and speak to the navy captains about possible safeguards in the event of another situation like the one with the _Nightingale_ —which they’re still muddy on the details of, although they know there was some sort of freak storm and possibly a sea creature.

It makes his head spin, after going so long spending most of his time in his room with only the twins or himself for company or on the beach staring longingly out to sea.

They don’t give him time to feel sorry for himself. And it’s not just Allura—Keith is constantly around them too, and after a slight adjustment period where they’re both still unsure how to act around each other, they relax, and start attempting to communicate again. It’s still difficult, without Lance talking, but Allura interprets where she can and Keith is good at guessing.

They eat meals together. Lance sits between them or beside them, depending on where they’re having the meal and who else is around, and they include him in every conversation they have, never cutting him out or forgetting that he’s there despite the fact that he doesn’t contribute any actual words to the discussion.

Keith leaves once, just for a few minutes, to clear up a misunderstanding between two of their top merchants, and Lance turns to Allura where she’s sitting at her desk reading through various reports.

 _Why?_ he sends to her, and her shoulders stiffen slightly before she relaxes and looks up at him, smiling.

“Why not?” she replies. He narrows his eyes at her—he can sense there’s more to this. She’s up to something. She’s _plotting._

He says as much, and she sighs, leaning back in her chair and stretching her arms above her head, groaning in satisfaction when her back pops.

Her hand touches briefly on the simple circlet that adorns her head as she pulls her arms back down, and her eyes slide out of focuse for a moment before returning to him.

“We care about you,” she says. “Trust that, if nothing else.”

Pain flares in his chest, and he’s not sure what expression flickers across his face but it has Allura straightening in concern.

He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and shakes his head when he opens them.

 _Thank you,_ he says, and nothing else.

She doesn’t push, choosing instead to return to her papers after studying him for a moment longer. He appreciates that.

For a while, he simply watches her. She gets a crease between her eyebrows when she concentrates, and occasionally mouths sections of the papers to herself. Every once in a while she’ll reach up with a hand and twirl a few loose strands of her hair around her fingers.

He has his sketchbook with him. That’s what he’s been using to occupy himself, mostly, since he’s not exactly very useful for most of the monarchic duties Allura and Keith insist on dragging him to.

He slumps back in his chair, propping one foot up on the chair to brace the back of the sketchbook against his knee, and starts sketching the scene in front of him, using careful, slow strokes of the charcoal to capture it as he sees it.

Keith comes back, but neither Lance or Allura look up when he enters, so he just goes straight to his own spot to one side of the desk, and Lance adjusts his sketch accordingly.

When he’s satisfied with the lines, he straightens in his chair, setting his charcoal aside, and flips absentmindedly through the pages.

Most of the drawings are of Allura and Keith. He’s not sure how that happened—he started the sketchbook before he even met Allura. But he supposes maybe his fingers hadn’t itched to draw as much before he met her.

And never so much as now, with all of them together, sitting in companionable silence. He can almost pretend that things aren’t about to change again.

The wedding is in two days. After that, whether any of them want it that way or not, the dynamics between the three of them are going to change. It’ll be Allura and Keith before it’s ever Allura and Lance or Lance and Keith or all three of them together.

But for now, Lance looks down at his sketchbook and then up at the two people he’s grown to care for so deeply in so short a time, and he smiles, bittersweet.

………………………

The night before the day of the wedding, Lance lays in bed and stares at the ceiling, restless energy buzzing in his chest despite the fact that he’d spent all day on his feet.

His hand wraps around his heartstone, taking comfort in its warmth against his skin and the way it syncs with the beat of his heart.

By the end of tomorrow, he will be alone again.

Allura had, perhaps, realized some of what he was feeling. She had tried to reassure him during one of their few moments alone that her marriage to Keith wouldn’t affect their friendship, and Lance had smiled at her and agreed even as he knew that it wasn’t true.

They both did, but he thinks Allura wanted to believe it could be.

She and Keith, despite the fact that Lance had only been with them for a few days, had grown close to him. Probably they didn’t love him—probably humans don’t fall that quickly.

Merfolk…well, they’re different. Lance isn’t quite a merman, but he isn’t quite human either, and he knows that he would do anything Allura and Keith asked of him, no matter the consequences to himself.

That pink color…

His grip shifts on his heartstone until his fingernails dig into the skin of his chest. The pain grounds him—it’s a physical reflection of the ache in his heart that feels like something’s wrapped around it and started to _squeeze._

He climbs out of bed, dropping his hand to his side, and pulls on his robe, ignoring the way the cold of the castle’s stone floor seeps into his bare feet. His body has already memorized the path from his bedroom to the shore.

The sand is cold at night. All of the heat from the day leeches out of it as soon as the sun disappears below the horizon. He relishes the feeling of it between his toes—his body is human now, more susceptible to cold, to nature, but he can’t find it in him to care.

The water is colder. They’re well into autumn at this point, and the cold always comes faster to places by the shore, at least here in the north.

Lance wades into it anyway, letting his hands skim across the surface of the water.

She sings to him.

 _I miss you,_ he tells her. _My beautiful Blue. I am sorry that you lost me._

She keens, one part grief and two parts comfort. She has never quite communicated in words—but Lance has been known as her favorite for a long, long time. He understands her more than the others, maybe.

The night around him is far from silent. The waves are loud where they hit the shore, the wind whistles in his ear, the cliffs groan behind him.

He closes his eyes and lets the ocean’s song rise above everything else, swaying with the motion of the tide. The cold soaks into his clothes, into his skin, into his core, but he doesn’t shiver.

His voice is different, but he can’t leave Blue with silence.

He hums, first, adding to her melody, and her song soars with joy when he joins, despite the dullness of his voice compared to what it used to be.

When he sings, his mouth forms the shape of the words in the old tongue, and he lets them flow from his throat to be carried out to sea, focusing on the ocean’s song rather than his own, to make sure his voice doesn’t stutter back into silence.

The waves rock him gently back and forth like a babe in a cradle, and he basks in the feeling of the water wrapping around him like a mother’s embrace. Peace dulls the pain settled behind his sternum, and the ocean’s voice as she sings with him like she has so many times before has weight he hadn’t known was there dropping from his shoulders.

Tears slip down his cheeks. He makes no effort to stop them.

There is a moment, with his eyes closed, with the water moving with him instead of against him as it would a normal human, with his dull voice pouring out of him in one last song, where he can almost pretend that things are as they were before. Where he can pretend that he is a part of the ocean, instead of apart from it, and that he and Blue are closer to one than they are to two.

The song ends. The feeling fades. He opens his eyes and looks at the stars on the horizon and lets the breeze and the sea spray wash away his tears.

Blue mourns, but the sea never turns on him.

“Lance,” a voice calls. It doesn’t surprise him. “Lance, come back to me.”

He turns from the water and finds Allura standing on the shore, wrapped in a robe similar to the one he’s wearing, carrying a blanket. Her hair is a white cloud of tangled waves around her head, and the marks on her cheeks glow faintly.

“You’re soaked through,” she says, soothing, as if she’s talking to a scared animal. “Come back to shore and dry off.”

He looks back towards the horizon—towards the ocean stretching out endlessly as far as he can see, touching the stars.

“Lance,” she calls again. He feels as though he’s being torn in two.

But he already made his decision. He knows his fate.

He turns, dipping his hands into the water as he walks and watching it drip from his fingers when he reaches the shallows.

Allura greets him where the water meets the sand, and reaches out to grasp his dripping hand, pulling him out of the water entirely. She lets go to wrap the blanket around him, and then wraps her arm around his shoulders, rubbing his arm with her other hand and steering him forward, back to the castle.

“I heard your song,” she says softly.

He looks back, even as his feet keep moving away.

“I had to try,” he replies, voice quiet and hoarse from disuse.

She nods, as if he’d confirmed some theory for her, and pulls him closer.

……………….

Allura directs them back towards Lance’s room, which he expects. This wouldn’t be the first time that someone had come to collect his wayward form from the beach and tucked him back into bed.

Keith is leaning against the wall next to his door. It’s almost enough to ruse Lance from the odd haze he’s fallen into—but not quite.

“Is he okay?” he asks quietly. His eyes study Lance the way they had when he and Allura had come back from finding the shipwrecked sailors, taking in his drenched clothes and damp skin and the blanket wrapped around him. He seems unbothered by how close Lance is to Allura.

“He will be,” Allura replies, just as quietly. Keith nods.

They both take Lance into his room. They help him change into something warm and dry. Allura rubs gently at his damp hair with a towel.

None of this—none of it is normal. None of it is expected. Lance might be uncomfortable, any other time. He might be curious, any other time.

There is a dull sense of _strangeness_ in the back of his mind. But his thoughts are with the ocean, far out to sea, and he doesn’t have the energy to ask why they’re taking care of him.

They guide him into bed—and then they climb in next to him. He shifts a bit at that, shaking himself out of his stupor enough to glance between them, confused and unsure.

 _Allura,_ he says. She shushes him, pulling the blankets over the three of them. Keith is on his other side, and after a moment of hesitation that Lance feels rather than sees, Keith drapes an arm over Lance’s side.

“You’re not alone,” Allura whispers to him, carding her fingers through his hair. Her eyes are bright. If he looks closely, he can see the night sky.

Keith twists his fingers into the loose fabric of Lance’s nightshirt.

“We’re here,” he murmurs.

Lance doesn’t understand. But his body aches, and every touch makes something settle in his chest, and his eyes are heavy.

“Sleep,” Allura breathes.

He sleeps.

…………………………

When Lance wakes up, he’s knows before he opens his eyes that he’s alone.

His hand rests in front of his face, fingers curled. The bed is empty. He wonders if maybe the night was a dream, but—no, he can see the indent where Allura’s head rested on the pillow.

He feels cold, abruptly. His trip to the ocean last night couldn’t make him cold, but waking up alone sends shivers shuddering down his spine.

The wedding is today.

He won’t be there. They might want him there, but they’d never force him into it. Both of them know what this day means for him.

He sits up in bed, head still a bit hazy, and drags the blankets with him when he stands, wrapping them around himself as he goes to the balcony and steps out, eyes seeking the sea.

It’s a beautiful day. The water glitters golden in the sun. The air’s chill bite is milder than usual.

A perfect day for a wedding.

The courtyard below bustles with activity. He doesn’t pay any attention to it. Instead, he sits, legs folded in front of him, still wrapped in his blankets, and watches the way the light scatters on the waves.

……………….

Greta finds him there. Leaves him there, after setting a plate of food and a glass of water next to him. Her hand had hovered hesitantly in the air before settling reassuringly on his shoulder, squeezing once, and then she’d headed back to wherever she’d been, no doubt helping with the wedding.

Lance doesn’t move. He could maybe become a statue—the calcified remains of a man who loved too much too soon and lost everything because of it.

His eyes are fixed somewhere far away—somewhere he can’t actually see, except in his memories. He lets himself get lost in his mind, ignoring the breeze biting his cheeks in favor of remembering.

The water is warm around him. Waves of sunlight dance on the sandy ocean floor. The pressure that would crush a human’s breath from their chest is a familiar comfort to him.

He can hear the hatchlings laughing from somewhere nearby. All merfolk have beautiful voices, but that laughter—it’s the most beautiful sound there is.

His heart squeezes painfully. He ignores it.

His sisters are singing. They are the glittering stars of the ocean, brilliant and bold and unafraid of existing.

There is whalesong somewhere, blending with the voices of his sisters. They hear each other and sing louder.

His body is light in the water. His lungs fill without effort. His heart is steady and strong, absent of aching.

Lance blinks, thoughts returning to the present in time to watch the ship leaving the harbor. It’s the best in the navy, Keith’s pride and joy, and of course that’s where the wedding had to happen.

The plan is to sail and drop anchor about a mile from the coast, still well within view of those on shore, for safety reasons.

The sky is clear. The water is tranquil. Lance isn’t worried.

He sighs, and stands, and dresses. The clothes are simple—a tunic and breeches. He’s not going anywhere special.

The beach is the same. He can see the ship from here. He doubts they can see him, such a small figure on the shore, in the shadow of the cliffs.

He lays down in the sand and closes his eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

Lance snaps into awareness at a clap of thunder that shakes the ground underneath him.

The ocean is no longer the picture of calm it had been barely a half an hour ago. Black clouds have gathered, swirling in a circle, and rain lashes the waves.

The beach is untouched. The storm is not a natural one. And the ship is in the middle of it.

He scrambles to his feet, shaking off the last of the haze his mind had plunged into as adrenaline floods through him.

 _Blue,_ he calls, and she answers. Her song is a roar—she is raging, but not at the ship. At the one causing it. At the one who dares to attempt to leash her.

Haggar.

 _Take me,_ Lance pleads. Blue hesitates, worrying over his new body, his human body, so much more fragile than it used to be. _I have to stop her._

She keens, torn between worry for him and rage at Haggar.

 _I am yours,_ he tells her. _I have always been yours._

He has always belonged to the ocean. Human or not, that will never change.

Something else changes, though—he can feel it. Blue swarms his mind, and something cracks and then loosens in his chest. Wind howls over the water and whips at his hair.

He steps into the water, and he doesn’t sink to the bottom. He takes another step, and the water cradles his feet.

He runs, and the waves crash around his knees but never reach higher than that, and each step grows in length until suddenly he’s in the storm, and rain is stinging his face and soaking his clothes so they cling to his skin, and then he’s at the side of the ship and there’s a ladder and he reaches for it and grabs hold, and Blue doesn’t leave him when he leaves the water.

 _Beautiful Blue,_ he murmurs, fond. _With me til the end._

She never responds with words. But her answer, whispered in the very core of him, is something like, _‘Always.’_

He can hear alarmed shouting and screams of fear, now that he focuses, and it drives his climb up the ladder and through the railing of the ship onto the deck—the decorations for the wedding are in tatters, soaked through and ripped by the wind or gone completely. People run back and forth, frantic, trying to keep the ship steady under the onslaught of the storm. No one notices him, in plain clothes on the edge of the chaos, and he prefers it that way.

He can taste the ozone in the air, and he knows what’s coming before any of the humans could even dare to guess.

A laugh is the first sign of her, echoing through the storm, synced with the crackling lightning and the crashing waves, and in the next flash of light Haggar appears on the deck in a cloud of sea spray, directly across from Lance, tentacles wrapped around the railings to hold herself steady. Her eyes glow yellow, and she looks right at him and _smiles._

 _“You thought you could beat_ me? _”_ she croons, voice thundering and powerful and everywhere all at once. The humans on the deck shrink back from her, scattering, and the one sailor that ventures close enough to try to attack is engulfed by a cloud of electricity. _“Foolish princeling. I never learned how to lose.”_

“You should have,” he whispers, lost to the wind. He knows that she hears him. “The ocean does not belong to you. And you do not belong to the ocean.”

Her forehead creases, just slightly, and she tilts her head at him like he’s an interesting puzzle.

 _“The waves obey me. The sea bows to my every whim,”_ Haggar intones. _“You cannot stop me, little prince. The ocean is mine to command.”_

Blue rages. Lance smiles, small and sad.

“You have endured much, old one,” he says. “It is time for you to rest.”

Haggar’s face twists, and lightning crackles from her fingertips, spreading across the deck to bring every human to their knees. It reaches Lance, but it can’t touch him.

Haggar hisses in annoyance and pulls herself entirely onto the deck, moving towards him. The humans are still incapacitated. None make a single movement towards her as she crosses to Lance.

Some start to notice that she moves with a purpose. Keith and Allura spot Lance before he spots them.

“ _Lance!”_ Allura calls, in his mind and out loud. His gaze flickers towards her—she’s kneeling next to Keith, helping him up as he shakes off the last of the electricity’s effects. Her eyes are wide and terrified.

She would become a target the second Haggar learned of her—so Lance smiles, just for her, warm and genuine, eyes creasing, and then turns back to Haggar, reaching up to his neck to grasp the amulet he still wears and ripping the cord that binds it with a snap. Haggar slows at the action, but sneers disdainfully and continues.

He steps forward as she reaches him, so there’s barely a few inches between them, and looks at her eyes, crazed and desperate and angry.

“Enough,” he says. Something in her expression falters, and then her features twist with rage as she bares her teeth and raises her hand to strike him down—he reaches out and grasps the amulet around her own neck, twin to his, ripping it from her throat and crushing it in his palm with the other.

The shards of the shattered amulets cut deep into his palm, until blood drips from his fingers, and he raises his shaking, bloody fist to his chest and presses his knuckles to his heart.

Haggar screams, reaching for him, claws tearing into his skin, but the damage is done. The wind swirls around them, storm reaching a crescendo, and he _burns,_ bones aching like they’ve been replaced with liquid fire.

Haggar’s claw-tipped hands still dig into the skin of his chest, sending blood pouring in red rivulets onto the deck. He grasps her wrist, so small in his grip, and wonders at how fragile she feels.

“Come,” he says, calm. “Let’s do this together.”

His other hand grabs for her waist, and he pulls her with him to the gap in the railing, where they both fall until the water closes over their heads, locked together.

Allura and Keith scream his name as he falls. It makes a warmth different from the burning pain of change bloom in his chest, and he smiles through the pain, unafraid.

Finally, finally unafraid.

“ _What have you done,”_ Haggar hisses. _“How did you know?”_

He tilts his head. Bubbles of air spill from his mouth when he opens it to reply, but by the time the water reaches his lungs he is no longer human.

“You do not belong to the ocean,” he says again. “I have belonged to her since the day I was born.”

Haggar growls, forcing her talons deeper into his chest as though she would dig out his heart.

“ _The ocean is_ mine,” she shouts in his face. He can hear the underlying panic and desperation.

“No,” he replies, sad. “It never was.”

Haggar launches herself at him, and he doesn’t move away. Her hand wraps around his throat, and he laughs, because the gills along his rib cage are enough for him to breathe, and he is _not human._

Blue’s presence engulfs them both. Haggar’s eyes go round with fear, and her grip slackens.

“What is this,” she says, and she is mortal. Her tentacles wrap around Lance’s wrists, tying him to her, and he smiles and smiles and smiles.

Blue is within him. All the power of the immortal ocean, poured into him, until he thinks he might burst with it.

They are something new.

 _“You cannot leash the ocean,”_ they say, _“no one can. And you—of course not you. You have no claim. You never did. You do not belong.”_

They reach out and brush their fingers along Haggar’s creased brow, and the witch closes her eyes at the touch, lips trembling.

“I am—tired,” she says.

“ _We know,_ ” they reply. _“It is time to rest.”_

“I do not want to be alone.”

“ _You are not. You will not be, ever again.”_

It is natural, they think, for the evil that has taken root in Haggar to attempt to lash out one last time. They are unsurprised when she does so, launching herself forward with what strength she has left to tear at their skin, opening wounds across their face, chest, and arms.

They receive the wounds calmly, unbothered by the blood that clouds the water, and when she finally subsides, they take her into their arms as they might to comfort a child.

“ _Shhh,”_ they say. _“Your suffering is over.”_

Haggar trembles in their arms.

“It’s been—so _long,_ ” she whispers into their shoulder.

She is small now. Her body feels frail and fragile in their arms.

“I am sorry,” she murmurs. “I fear—I did not learn from my punishment as I was meant to. I only caused more pain.”

“ _Shhhhh,”_ they soothe again. Their voice is the sound of waves on the shore. “ _Rest now.”_

They sink, the three of them, and the storm above begins to subside as the rage that fueled it drains away. The sea calms, and they sing.

The melody that pours from their throat is a lullaby, and more than that, a goodbye, sorrowful and sweet.

In their arms, Haggar changes. She shivers with it, but there is no pain, and she does not cry out as her tentacles and talons disappear, as she is turned back to what she once was, as her body remembers how to be human.

Honerva was a beautiful woman. She is now as she was, with amber eyes and long gray hair and faint red cheek marks.

Her legs sway in the current. She makes no move to swim, even as the water chokes the air from her lungs and she begins to fade.

She pulls back, looking at them. Her eyes are grateful—and beyond that, remorseful.

The ocean has never had use for regret. It is what it is, and the past cannot be changed.

But they think, maybe, that they understand.

Honerva’s eyes close for the last time, and her body dissolves as the years catch up with her, turning even her bones to dust.

They are left alone, drifting, water clouded by blood. Looking up, they find that the light has returned.

Separating is harder than they thought possible, as if they belong as one.

Pain is the first thing that makes itself known to Lance, but before he even has the chance to focus on it properly, it starts to fade, dulling to a distant ache.

Probably that’s not a good sign, but he knew when he pulled Haggar from the ship that he wasn’t making it out of this. That was never the plan.

Blue hums at him, and he floats in her embrace, wrapped in her presence. She twines around him like an affectionate cat.

He sings back at her—one note, bright and clear, and she chirps, happy to hear his proper voice again.

 _Thank you,_ he says. _My beautiful Blue._

 _Yours,_ she purrs. _And you are mine._

He’s spent so much of his time in the past week longing to return to this—to return to the ocean, and to his true body, with his gills filtering oxygen from the saltwater to fill his lungs, and the scales of his tail scattering light across the sand. He can taste life on his tongue, in the water—so bright and strong and beautiful. The ocean is so _full_ of _life._

His eyes close. He’s not sure he chooses to close them.

Blue sings. It’s the lullaby from before, deeper now, fuller, resonating through the water for what must be miles and miles and miles.

She holds him close. Her mind brushes his, and she sends—regret?

 _I am sorry,_ she murmurs to him. _You are mine._

 _I am yours,_ he replies, automatically. His thoughts feel fuzzy, but—it’s not unpleasant. _Why are you sorry?_

 _I am sorry,_ she repeats, barely a whisper.

 _I chose this,_ he reminds her. _I do not regret it._

Her sadness surrounds him, but his mind is peaceful. His soulmates are safe—his family is safe. And he is dying in the arms of his first love, free of pain, without regret.

Something registers, above him. A change. Blue’s sadness turns curious, then joyful, then bittersweet.

He opens his eyes, gaze unfocused. There’s almost a face, just there, and a hand, reaching out, trailing fingers along his cheek.

There’s something like the ghost of a kiss on his forehead, and then a hand latches onto his wrist and wraps around him, pulling him up, towards the light.

His eyes have already closed again. He can sense the urgency of whoever holds him, but he can’t stay. The world doesn’t have a place for him, torn as he is between two worlds that haven’t coexisted in millennia.

He grows warm instead of cold as the darkness tugs at him. His skin and scales start to tingle—not uncomfortably, not from pain. He can’t place the feeling, but he holds onto it, curious, and it keeps the darkness at bay a little longer.

The hands holding him carry him to the surface, and he feels the air wash over his face as his head tips back over someone’s shoulder—then, suddenly, there are more hands, cupping his face, stroking his cheek, and somewhere, somehow, he finds the energy to open his eyes.

Allura is there, in front of him, eyes glowing softly. Tears spill over her cheeks, but her lips form a wobbly smile when she sees his eyes open.

“Lance,” her mouth says. He can’t hear her.

He looks up, leaning into the solid presence at his back, supporting his head, and finds Keith. His hair is plastered to his face, water pouring from his chin, brow creased in worry and grief and fear.

He looks at them both and sees—regret.

“I’m so sorry,” Keith’s lips say.

Lance blinks, slow to open his eyes again, and they look frantic, suddenly.

Sound comes back to him, quiet.

“Lance,” Allura is crying, “Lance, _please.”_

He reaches for her—her hand meets him halfway, grip so tight it should hurt, and he turns to tuck his forehead against Keith’s neck.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“No,” Allura says.

“It’s okay,” he says again.

“It’s not,” Keith replies, pleading. His voice is more full of emotion than Lance thinks he’s ever heard it.

Some of the pain is starting to come back—it burns, and his face twists. He thought he would be gone by now. He should be gone by now.

Blue’s presence lingers in the back of her mind. She’s singing his lullaby.

Lance lifts his other hand, and he’s not sure when such a simple thing became so hard. His shaking fingers tangle with the cord around his neck, and he tugs at it until it slides free, cradling the shell in his palm.

He holds it out between them. It’s all he has left to give.

Allura takes it from him, gently, dull nails just barely scraping against his palm and leaving a strange warmth in their place. His hand drops back to his side.

He can hear her fumbling to open it, and then there’s a click when she manages it, and a gasp when she realizes what it is. What he’s given them.

“It’s you,” he says. His voice is barely a breath now. “It’s always been you. Both of you.”

Her grip tightens on his hand even more, until he thinks his bones might break from the strain, but the darkness is back now and he wants to follow it.

Keith pulls him closer. Allura moves forward until they form a circle, the three of them—the prince, the sea witch, and the merman.

What an unlikely love story.

He smiles, faintly, but he knows that Keith feels the way his lips move against the bare skin of his collarbone because his breath chokes in his throat and they crowd in on him, until their breath warms his face and he can taste their tears on his lips.

There’s a kiss—on his cheek, his brow, each eyelid. The corner of his mouth.

“We belong to you,” Allura whispers. “You belong to us.”

“We’re not letting you go,” Keith says, voice cracking. “We won’t let you go.”

Lance had never given much thought to dying. But this—if he had to choose, if he got to choose, he would choose this. Cradled in the arms of his first love, in the arms of his second, in the arms of his third—he has never felt so _warm._

The darkness drags at him again. He squeezes the hand holding his, just once—and then he lets it take him.


	15. Chapter 15

Lance isn’t expecting to wake up. Or, maybe he is—the idea of something _after_ is one he’s always liked. That there’s always that possibility of getting to reunite with the ones he loves, even after being separated by death.

But—this isn’t right.

His head is strange, cloudy and floating, and his thoughts are scattered. He can’t quite remember what happened to bring him here.

It flashes, disjointed, in his memories. Haggar—Blue—Allura—Keith.

He can hear gulls calling somewhere in the distance, and waves hitting a beach. His body is warm, and dry, and—human.

His legs shift. They’re covered by some sort of blanket.

It’s familiar, and yet—not the same.

There are hands holding each of his. And he feels—whole.

He blinks his eyes open, slowly. There are smooth stone walls, and gauzy fabric fluttering in a breeze, and—

Keith. And Allura. Asleep on either side of him, hands tucked in his—they’re sitting in chairs, instead of in the bed, hunched forward with their heads resting on his blankets.

He chirps a question, and—his voice comes out as his. He blinks, taken aback, and tries again, humming experimentally.

Blue’s presence finds him, somehow.

 _Blue,_ he murmurs.

She croons. _Mine._

He is—something different. Something new. Something in between, bridging two worlds.

She speaks to him in a language without words—impressing upon him the knowledge that if he desires, he can come back to her waters at any time, sliding flawlessly between land and sea without limits.

He trills, delighted, and the sound is loud enough to wake Allura and Keith, who stir on either side of him, lifting their heads to first look at each other, blinking groggily, brows furrowed in confusion at the interruption to their sleep.

They look at him next, and find him awake—their faces brighten instantly, and suddenly Lance finds himself wrapped up in both of them, pulled upright. It causes wounds he wasn’t aware of to flare with pain, pulling a sound of discomfort from him, and they start to pull away, but he reaches up and holds on, unwilling to let go.

“Lance,” Allura says. Her tongue curls around his name like it’s a song in itself. “You absolute _idiot.”_

He blinks, and they both pull away from him—not far. Still holding him, still touching, as though they can’t believe he’s there, beneath their hands.

“What were you _thinking?_ ” Allura demands, and there’s grief still lingering in her words.

“It was the only way to keep you safe,” he answers.

“Bullshit,” Keith says, loud. “There were other ways that didn’t involve you _sacrificing_ yourself. Did you even think about what it’d do to us?”

Lance shrugs. “You have each other. I knew you’d be okay.”

“ _No—”_ they both growl, frustrated.

“No one would be okay after losing you,” Keith says.

“You’ve only known me for a few days,” Lance reminds them. “Humans love differently. It takes longer.”

“Not always,” Allura answers, soft. “Sometimes you just know.”

“You have each other,” Lance repeats, stubborn.

“But we want _you,_ ” Keith says.

Lance looks at him. His eyes are just as dark and beautiful as the first time Lance saw them—but now they’re full of pain and regret and guilt.

“I’m sorry, Lance,” he continues. His voice is thick.

“We both are,” Allura adds.

“We made you feel like there wasn’t space for you, and that—we’re not going to forgive ourselves for that. You belong here, with us.”

Lance softens. He turns to Allura—finds Keith’s words reflected in her own expression.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he tells them.

They rearrange themselves. Keith curls behind him, his chest to Lance’s back, supporting him, and Allura faces him, sitting between his legs with her own legs facing sideways and her torso twisted so she can rest her head on his shoulder.

“Why did you do it?” Allura asks, voice a whisper. Keith’s arms tense where they wrap around Lance’s stomach.

“I was afraid,” Lance answers. He looks at them, at the window where he can see the sea glittering underneath the sun. “I’m not anymore.”

He breathes, and he’s not sure it’s ever been so easy. Keith presses a kiss to his neck, and Allura presses one to his jaw, and then they lean over his shoulder and kiss each other and their hair tickles Lance’s cheek and he laughs, and he is so, so warm.

Distantly, he wonders how he’ll ever explain all this to his family. To Hunk.

But now, in this moment, even with the pain of his wounds tinging his thoughts, he’s happier than he ever knew he could be.

And it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments and kudos! they give me life


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